


999 Days From Now

by TC (thecollective)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Diners, Art by archiought, Asshole John Winchester, Big Bang Challenge, Character Death, Clueless!Sam, DCBB, DCBB 2014, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2014, Diner Owner Dean, Do not repost, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of child abuse/neglect, Past Drug Addiction, Romance, Slow Burn, Texting, copious amounts of angst, translated into Italian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 05:50:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2610770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecollective/pseuds/TC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which a recovered alcoholic Dean owns a diner, Sam is in law school and is clueless about the way Jess looks at him, and Cas? Well, Cas turns Dean’s world upside down and maybe, just maybe, gives him a reason to have a little faith. </p><p>The love of a lifetime told in a heartbeat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Prep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [archi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/archi/gifts).



> To my betas, [Collectiva Diva.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thecollective/pseuds/The%20Collectiva%20Diva) and [jacksqueen16](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksqueen16/pseuds/jacksqueen16), thank you for encouraging me every step of the way. A very special thank you to my medical expert, who answered my seemingly-endless questions between surgical rotations. Love you, darling. To my artist, archiought, thank you for being my muse. 
> 
> This story was originally inspired by Kal Ho Naa Ho, a fantastic Bollywood film. You could consider this story very loosely based on the film. I did create a playlist that I listened to on repeat as I wrote this. You can listen along [here](http://open.spotify.com/user/the_collective_blog/playlist/6ru7DVqaaZMyV4HAYt1OwV). The stunning artwork is by [archiought.](http://archiought.tumblr.com). Please go leave her some love, because she well deserves it. 
> 
> I do not own Supernatural or any of its characters, and the only profit I receive from this is your kudos. 
> 
> This story has now been translated into [Italian](http://www.efpfanfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=3411197&i=1)
> 
> Warnings and triggers are in the tags. **In case you don't read tags, this fic does contain major character death. Ye be warned.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone. I hate that I have to add this, but PLEASE do not repost my fics on any other sites without my permission. I have only posted "999 Days From Now" on AO3 and Wattpad, so if you see it somewhere where it shouldn't be, please let me know. Thank you and happy reading!

**__ **

**_Prologue_ **

Life wasn’t the box of chocolates that Forrest Gump had promised. 

Life, Dean had discovered, was fragments of the best and worst moments you lived that replayed over and over in your memory. By themselves, they didn’t show much because they were only glimpses--the warmth of his mother's smile, Sam losing his first tooth, Castiel’s ridiculous hair when he woke up, the purr of Baby’s engine on a cold Nebraskan morning, or the shared piece of pecan pie--but together they cobbled together a story, from beginning to end. 

Dean didn’t know what kind of story his life would tell, at first. By the time he figured it out, it had happened so naturally that Dean almost didn’t realize he’d fallen in love. But then, he’d never been in love before, and he’d expected love to be fireworks, moonlit walks, and chick flick moments; instead he’d had pie and laughter and Bruce Lee movies. Perhaps realizing he was in love was the climax of the story, and stories don’t begin there, and they certainly don’t begin this close to the end. Really, Dean’s love story began the day he put salt instead of sugar in Sam’s coffee.

** DAY 1 **

“Not so fast,” Dean said to Jess. “You don’t want a raw burger. We don’t do steak tartare here.”

Jess gripped the spatula a little tighter, clutching it to her chest, making the embroidered “Dive Burger” on her t-shirt appear as “Divurger”. “Flipping burgers should be easy compared to grad school,” she complained. She pursed her lips in disgust as she looked at the meat patty, which looked more like refried beans than beef. "Maybe I should stick to waitressing," she said. 

"You can do this," Dean insisted. "Let me show you." He grabbed a pair of clear disposable plastic gloves and a spatula. Ellen’s voice echoed through his head, “Extra cleanliness and health precautions mean less health code violations.” After putting on the gloves, he grabbed a glob of raw hamburger from the tray of ingredients in front of him, and then a handful of salsa verde. He massaged the two together. Jess looked at him with complete skepticism painted on her pretty face. "Trust me," he said. He divided the meat in half, placing a wad of pepperjack cheese in the middle, then smushing the meat together, using the spatula to flatten and form it into a perfectly shaped burger. "Well done, right?" he asked Jess. 

She nodded. The other diner staff worked around them, as if they were windbreaks in a Nebraskan windstorm. Dean cooked the burger for precisely six minutes on one side before turning it, and once it was flipped he added more pepperjack cheese to the top. He lightly toasted a bun on the grill, brushing it with garlic-infused olive oil for flavor. 

Jess was salivating by the time he assembled the burger, complete with a flourish of avocado, tomatoes, and romaine lettuce. "Here," he said, handing her the burger, "Try this." 

She took the biggest bite he'd ever seen, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she savored the taste. "Mffffsss sseewwww ghhhennnn," she moaned. 

"Well I'm glad you like it, now do you want to try it again? Make one by yourself?"

She shook her head. "No need," she said in between bites. "I got what I came for." She smirked. 

Of course Jess had manipulated him into making her lunch. Again. "One of these days," he swore, "I'm going to make you something out of kale."

"No, you won't, because you hate kale as much as I do. This is delicious, by the way. You should add it to the Dive Burger menu." 

"Thanks, and maybe I will. As for the kale, I know someone who could probably make you eat it," Dean promised. He grabbed a dish towel and flicked it at her. "Now get back to work," he ordered somewhat sternly. 

"I do what I want," she replied. She adjusted her waitressing apron anyway and walked back out to the front of the diner. Dean cleaned up the kitchen from his "cooking lesson" with Jess, and even though the woman had only been behind the stove for approximately five minutes, she'd made more of a mess than most cooks made in an hour. He finished cleaning up, then followed Jess out to the front counter to keep an eye on the place. He'd scored a jackpot when it came to Dive Burger's staff: there was the occasional hiccup, but mostly the joint was a well-oiled machine. As the owner and manager, he had limited headaches. Dean knew that this was 90% because of Jessica Moore, but he spared her ego and never told her.

"Any sign of Sammy?" he asked her. 

She shook her head. "This semester has been rough on him, hasn't it?" she said. "We barely see him in here unless he's studying." 

Dean heard a distinct tone of disappointment in the waitress's voice, and speaking of Sam, at that moment his Sasquatch brother walked in with a briefcase. _A briefcase_. Just because Sammy was in law school didn’t mean that he had to start acting like some douchebag lawyer. “Yo, Sam,” he said, “What’s with the grandpa luggage?”

“Huh?”

“The briefcase. What gives?” asked Dean. 

“They’ve given us like ten cases to go over this weekend, and this seemed like the best way to carry them,” explained Sam. He swung the briefcase up on the counter, and for a minute Dean swore they were in an alternate reality because when did Sam become such a grown up? He remembered a time when Sam would stubbornly refuse to let anyone help him carry his textbooks. He’d been fourteen or so, and Sam was about ten, and the kid hadn’t understood that he didn’t need to take _all_ of his textbooks home every day. 

Now Sam was taller than him and wearing polo shirts and carrying _briefcases_. Sure, the “kid” was twenty eight, and, god, when did that happen? His brother opened the briefcase and methodically lined up paperwork on the countertop, not one piece of paper even the slightest bit askew. Each file was color-coded with copious amounts of notes written on the outside, each scrawled in Sam's signature shorthand. Dean appreciated the organization, but not the six feet of countertop Sam’s files consumed. 

“Sammy, this is a restaurant, not a library. Can’t you study somewhere else?” He didn’t really want to make Sam leave--the diner was practically empty at 2 o’clock on a Friday afternoon--but the older brother instinct never passed up an opportunity to make Sam’s life just a _little_ bit harder. 

Sam huffed a little, his cheeks puffing out slightly. “I’ll take a coffee,” he said.“See? Now I’m a customer. Let me study in peace.”

Dean smirked and ruffled Sam’s hair. Sam scowled at him and combed his fingers through his mane. Dean laughed because even though his brother was going to join the Legions of Lawyer Douchebags, he would never cut his hippie hair. He ruffled Sam’s hair again.

"Dean. Stop."

“Why have long hair if you don’t want people to mess with it?”

“Dean!”

“Alright, alright,” he said. He raised his hands and backed away. “Don’t study too hard, okay? It’s Friday.” 

“Yeah, law school doesn’t care about that.”

“Well, maybe they should? There’s more to life than books and courtrooms.”Not that Dean would know. He had maybe three books of his own at his and Sam's apartment. He poured Sam’s coffee and placed the mug in front of his brother. Sam looked tired; not like he needed more sleep, but more like he needed a hug and six doubles of Jack. “Let me know if you need anything else, okay? I’m gonna be in the back. Jess is around here somewhere.” 

Sam didn’t look up from his case files as he said, “Thanks, Dean.” 

Dean headed towards the diner's back office, straightening napkin dispensers and flatware as he went. Jess, who had given herself the job title of “waitress extraordinaire and unofficial assistant manager”, often told him he was almost military in his anal retentiveness. Their arguments usually went something like this: he would threaten to fire her, she would remind him he was useless at bookkeeping and needed her, then they would drink a milkshake together (which may or may not have had a shot of something stronger in it when Jess was in the mood) and talk bullshit until closing time. If Jess hadn't fallen ass-over-tits for Sam the first time she saw him, Dean would have made a move on her a long time ago. For all Sam's intelligence, he wasn't smart enough to notice the gorgeous blonde who consistently made googly eyes at him. 

Like she was doing right now.

The blonde waitress was draped over the counter in front of Sam, trying to engage him in conversation. His brother gave monosyllabic grunts in response, until Jess was called away by an incoming group of six high schoolers, who would probably order Coca Colas and a basket of fries to share. Jess always got annoyed at the teenagers who came into Dive Burger, said they were a waste of time and energy, until Dean would wrap an arm around her shoulders and say, "There are always worst things they could be doing." 

Dean placed himself at the end of the long counter, wiping away crumbs that didn't exist. He was just looking out for his baby brother, he told himself, as he pulled out his phone and checked it for texts he'd never received. Nobody ever texted him except for Sam and Jess. Occasionally Ellen. And Jo, once a year on his birthday. Or when she needed a diagnosis for that “weird cranky sound” her car made. 

Jess put in the order for a basket of fries and moved next to Sam, her eyes hopeful. As Dean headed to the kitchen to drop some fries in the deep frier, he wondered if maybe today was the day when Sam would get his head out of his ass and notice the girl. 

"Hey Sam," said Jess, "How's law school?"

Sam grunted in response and flipped another page. "It's fine," he said with all the enthusiasm of an atheist going to church. 

"How's life?" she tried again.

"The same. You know, school, work, sleep," Sam replied. He didn't look at Jess as he highlighted sections of the legal document he was looking at. "Sorry, Jess, but I really don't have time to talk. We'll catch up later."

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I can see you’re busy as frak.” While Dean would usually applaud the _Battlestar Galactica_ reference, he decided against it as a dejected Jess shrugged her shoulders at him as she walked past him.

He followed Jess to the back office where she spent the next hour pretending that she didn't care that Sam had brushed her off like lint on an old sweatshirt. So what if Sam didn't notice her? She knew how to have fun and have a life, unlike Dean's younger-stupider-asshat brother. She didn't need Sam to be happy, she said, so he could just go and liveby himself forever with his stupid law cases and his stupid books and his stupid perfect hair.

"Uh, Jess, you do remember that's my brother you're talking about. Right?"

She took a sip from her more-rum-than-milkshake. "Yeah. So? Stupid is stupid. And that's what Sam is. Stupid. And I'm not gonna waste my time being nice to stupid."

Dean wasn't inclined to disagree. “Yeah, stupid,” he muttered. He took a pretend-sip of his own milkshake. The rum burned the back of his throat. He wasn’t used to this crap anymore. John Winchester would’ve rolled over in his grave with laughter and called him a lightweight. 

“And _another_ thing,” Jess continued. “You, you’re no better. You just come here and cook and boss me around and worry about Sam, and really, what kind of life is that? You’re stupid. The Winchesters are stupid.” Her face was turning a bit red now, and her blue eyes stared daggers through him. 

“Well, that was uncalled for,” he said. “All I do is make you milkshakes and pay you.”

She glared at him and swiped his milkshake from his hand. She slurped on it loudly to prove a point. “You weren’t drinking it fast enough,” she said by way of explanation. 

“Brat.”

He left Jess in the office and went back to the front to meet the dinner rush. Friday nights had all the Stanford kids showing up to pregame their partying with a couple of Dive Burger's finest bacon cheeseburgers. Saturday morning had them showing up for the same thing, but this time they called it "the hangover cure-all." 

Well, all the Stanford kids except Sam, that is. 

Sam still sat at the counter, papers and documents scattered around him, a six-foot radius of boring lawyer shit. His coffee mug was empty. His brother apparently hadn't taken to heart Dean's "it's Funday Friday" speech. “Want another?” Dean asked him. 

Sam looked at him blankly. 

Dean picked up the coffee mug and waved it in front of his brother’s face. “Another cup o’ joe?”

“Oh. Sure. Thanks.” And then went back to studying. 

He poured Sam's coffee--black with two sugars--but then changed his mind and dumped the coffee in the sink. 

Sam didn't notice.

Dean would be damned if his brother spent all Friday night in his books. Jess was right; they needed lives. He poured a second cup--by now Jess had come back out to the floor and the look she was giving him was pure confusion--but this time instead of two sugars, he added two spoonfuls of salt. Jess moved next to him and whispered none-too-quietly, "What are you _doing_?"

Dean ignored her and set the mug in front of his brother. "There ya go, buddy."

"Thanks," Sam muttered.

And then he took a sip. 

Dean heard Jess suck in a deep breath, as if Sam were a no-pin grenade that had been thrown into her lap. But Sam continued to sip his coffee, and if it weren't so damn sad, Dean would laugh. So Dean walked to the other side of the counter, took away Sam's notes, and began packing them away in the grandpa suitcase. 

"What are you doing?" asked Sam. He didn't sound particularly annoyed, just tired. 

"We're going to play basketball. You've been staring at this legal mumbo jumbo for too long," replied Dean. 

"No, I haven't. I need to read these case notes," whined Sam. He attempted to take the briefcase back, and it started a tug-of-war between the brothers. It reminded Dean of the one childhood Christmas when there had been enough presents to fight over. 

"Sammy, we're leaving. That's final."

"Dean, I _can't_. I have too much to do. So do you."

"My bar, my rules. Jess can cover it."

"This isn't a bar."

"You know what I mean."

The argument continued until Jess got annoyed with their bickering and put them on time-out. "You," she said, pointing to Dean, "Are right. Sam is working too hard."

"Hear that? I'm right."

"Shut it, Dean," she said. "Now you." She pointed at Sam. "You need a break. Don't argue; this isn't a courtroom. Besides, I have the closing statement: you didn't notice that Dean 'sweetened' your coffee with salt instead of sugar. That means it's break time, mister. So get out there and exercise. It's good for your brain." Well, Jess wasn't kidding when she said she'd had it with Sam's stupidity. She pulled Sam off the diner stool. "Now get outta here."

Sam really was an idiot for not taking this awesome girl off the market. 

"C'mon, Sammy," said Dean, "I'm gonna wipe the court with you."

Sam pouted a little, flashed some of his big puppy dog eyes at Jess--who, to her credit, didn't back down and practically shoved him out the door--but once they were in Dean's Impala, he relaxed. Marginally.

Dean took his brother to the local YMCA. It was something they did, a promise they had made to each other when they had first moved to California from Nebraska: life first, work (or school) second. They got on the court, and there was nothing but the squeak of rubber soles on wood floors and the disruptive energy of sibling rivalry. Although Sam was taller than Dean by a few inches (damn Sasquatch), Dean was usually the more nimble of the two. Sam said it was on account of his bow legs. Asshole. Normally, Dean would be dancing around Sam on the court, but today, Sam was leading by nearly twenty points. "That the best you've got, old man?" Sam taunted him. 

It wasn't the best he could do, and they both knew it. 

"I'm going easy on you today," Dean lied. "When you're a real lawyer, you're gonna get fat from pencil-pushing and you'll never beat me again." 

"We'll see about that," said Sam. "I'm not going to be one of _those_ lawyers."

"How do you mean?" Dean took the opportunity to plop himself on the bench. If they were taking an unofficial time-out, he might as well catch his breath. Sam was really kicking his ass. 

"I'm not going to be a lawyer that forgets why the law was created in the first place. The law is here to protect people and I'm not going to sit inside an office and drive a Mercedes and forget about that." 

For a moment, Dean forgot that Sam was a 28-year-old law student. He saw Sammy the floppy-haired bookworm, the twelve-year-old who, on the day their dad had walked out the front door for the final time, had said, "I'm going to change things someday. Kids like us should be protected from people like _him_."

Dean would never admit it, but he'd looked up to his kid brother ever since, literally as well as figuratively. 

"C'mon, Sasquatch," Dean said. "You can change the world _after_ I beat you at one-on-one." 

Sam smiled that same toothy grin he'd smiled when they were children. "Yeah right. Prepare to be annihilated."

** DAY 57  **

Dean was sprawled face-down on the couch when Sam emerged from his room in the late morning.“Hey, man, you didn’t go to work today?” Sam asked.

“Nah,” Dean said into the sofa cushion his face was smushed against. “Didn’t feel like it.”

“Well, what did Jess have to say about it?”

Dean cracked one eye open. His brother’s hair was fluffed up into a ridiculous sort-of afro. Must’ve been up late studying again. “I’m the boss,” Dean said. “Means I do what I want.” He shuffled up into a sitting position, yawning and stretching his arms out. “Told her that I had to keep an eye on my stupid brother who can’t seem to stop studying.” 

Sam arched one eyebrow. “Stupid?”

“Her word. Not mine.”

Dean moved over so Sam could collapse on the sofa next to him. “There’s a six-pack in the fridge for you,” he started. 

“Dude, it’s like ten a.m.”

“You telling me you don’t want to hang out with your brother? Who took the day off to watch Bruce Lee movies with you?”

Sam hesitated 0.23 seconds before saying, “Put on _Enter the Dragon._ I’m grabbing a beer.”

** DAY 126  **

To Ellen: _u still coming to visit this month?_ 9:17 a.m.

From Ellen:  _would never miss your birthday_ 11:27 a.m. 

** DAY 195  **

Dean had decided that Sam’s life had reached critically pathetic standard; Dean wasn't even sure he could call it 'life.' Sam hadn't been anywhere except school, the diner, and their apartment in weeks. He'd turned down an invitation to a shirt-optional Mardi Gras party thrown by two _very_ attractive coeds (Dean had made his brother nothing but decaf coffee for days afterward as punishment). Broccoli, celery, and _kale_ had infested the refrigerator at home because Sam had deemed it "brain food." And now? Now the Gigantor had fallen asleep face-first in one of his textbooks while studying at the diner. Other patrons shook their heads and snickered, and one girl named Becky (who claimed to be Sam's classmate) snapped a picture with her phone. Dean desperately hoped she didn't go home and add the picture to some Sam Winchester shrine she had hidden in her closet. 

Jess was due to come in any minute, and though Dean was tempted to pour ice cold water down the back of Sam's button-up, he thought that the awakening of Sam Winchester should be left to the sassy blonde. It was _not_ a feeble attempt at matchmaking, he told himself, _but_ if Sam were to wake up like Sleeping Beauty and fall in love with a pretty face, it might as well be Jess’s.  

No, it _definitely_ should be Jess’s. 

Jess walked in ten minutes later. “You look like a deep-fried shit pancake that’s been run-over by a 16-wheeler," Dean said. “What the hell happened to you?"  

She glared at him, and even the fluffiest bunny would have burned under the pure hatred in her eyes. "Shut up, Dean. It's none of your business." Her eyes softened when she saw Sam. It always amazed Dean, the way Jess transformed into a happier, lighter person the instant Sam came around; sometimes she seemed to glow, not that Dean would ever tell her that. He valued the possession of his family jewels.

"He studies too much," she said, gesturing to the lightly snoring giant.

"Yeah, he does," Dean agreed.

"Are you going to wake him up? You can't let him sleep like that. It'll hurt his neck." She hovered over Sam like a concerned Mama Bear. As much as Jess claimed to be "over" Sammy, moments like this spoke up and called her a liar. 

"Last time I woke him up, he bitchfaced me for an hour. I don't have time for that. You wake him up," said Dean. 

"Fine." Jess reached over and brushed her fingertips against Sam's shoulder, the slightest of touches. Dean wasn't sure this woman--who on a good day was more forceful than a hurricane, and on a bad day was something much more terrifying--was the same one who came in late every morning because her Jiu Jitsu practice ran over. Unbidden, memories of another woman who woke up her four-year-old son the same way flew through Dean’s mind, and in that moment, a wave of grief drowned him. Jess was like her, in some small ways, like the way she could look a person in the eye while she poured coffee and never spill, or the way her whole body shook as she laughed whenever Sam told one of his dumb lawyer jokes. Mary Winchester had laughed the same way at her husband's silly stories about the customers whose cars he had worked on. The memory of his mother, even now, almost thirty years later, squeezed his chest tight with thoughts of what should have been.

This is how Dean knew there was no God: Sam didn't remember their mother; the only childhood his brother had was laced with the sting of being forgotten at school, the sound that the leather of their father's belt made against naked skin, and the smell of whiskey on John Winchester's breath. 

"Sam," Jess said. She leaned over and draped her fingers through Sam's hair. "Sam, wake up."

"Mmmmmnnnnghhh," Sam groaned. "Don't wanna."

Dean watched the Unsinkable Jessica Moore bring the Gigantor out of his coma, like Bilbo awakening the dragon, and as Sam blinked away the sleep from his eyes and Jess shoved a mug of unsalted coffee under his nose, Dean was struck by how normal this all seemed. He could picture hundreds of mornings like this--a sleepy-eyed Sam and a snarky pre-caffeinated Jess bickering over who used the rest of the milk or the last coffee filter or whatever. If Sam didn't get his head outta the law books soon and ask Jess out on a date, Dean was going to make sure he regretted it every day for the rest of his life, no matter how long that might be. To prove a point Sam didn't know about, he kicked his brother in the shin. Sam cursed at him and moved his head back to his textbook, preparing to fall back asleep.

"Rise and shine, Sammy boy," Dean sang to his brother. 

Sam frowned. "Don't call me 'Sammy."

"Touchy. Touchy."

"Go away." 

"My joint. Means I do what I want."

Sam raised his head enough to give Dean his patented bitchface. "Your 'joint'? Are you a 1930s mobster now?" 

Jess intervened before Captain Bitchface got much crankier, which was awesome because Dean really didn't have the energy to spare on arguing with his brother. 

"How about some food, Sam?" she said. "You need brain food if you're gonna keep studying hard like this." She put her arm around his brother's shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze. Sam leaned into her touch, resting his head in the crook of her shoulder. Dean kinda wanted to “awwww” like a teenage girl. So he did. Jess dropped her arm from Sam’s shoulders as if it burned her. “Um, so I’m gonna make you food now,” she said. 

Dean followed her to the kitchen. "What was that?" he asked Jess. 

"It's nothing," she protested. She crossed her arms in front of her. "Sam looked like he needed a hug." She shrugged as if it were no big deal.

They both knew she was lying. 

"You're acting strange today," Dean said to her. “You’re not...you’re not a _hugger_.”

“People change.” She grabbed some tomatoes and began to chop them into salad-sized chunks. "I'm fine, Dean," she insisted, "I just...broke up with that guy I was seeing."

"Oh, Senor Douchebag? Yeah, he was a keeper." 

Jess punched him in the shoulder, and it stung more than Dean would ever admit to. "I _know_ I have terrible taste in men, alright? I just--I just always think 'it's gonna be different this time', you know? And it never is. It's never any fraking different." She sighed. Dean had never heard a sadder sound. "Maybe I should date you," she continued, "I know I can keep _you_ in line."

Dean laughed. "Yeah, that would only work until we murder each other."

"But we'd make such beautiful babies," she pouted. 

"Yes," Dean agreed, "Beautifully stubborn babies."

They laughed and joked for a few minutes about their potential for domestic disaster. Jess made Sam a plate of "brain food" (Dean didn't know where she'd gotten the greens from); Dean made them both vanilla milkshakes, Jess poured some rum in them because she "just needed a little Captain right now," and eventually, the whole story poured out of Jess. 

Dean sipped lightly on the milkshake, just like he always did when Jess spiked them. She'd only noticed once, and he'd made up a bullshit excuse about not liking the "weak stuff." He had never told Jess about the days when he had drunk the "strong stuff" like he was a newborn sucking its mother's teat. That Dean was dead, buried in Omaha's Hallmark Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center.

Turning his attention to Jess, he learned that Senor Douchebag--because really, what else do you call a guy who wore _loafers_ and bragged about breaking up with girls via text message--had dumped her because she focused too much on school and not enough on him. "I guess I just liked him because he was available, you know?” Jess said.“He was there, and god, he was so cute. The cute ones are always stupid."

Dean refrained from mentioning that there was a "cute" gigantor half-asleep on the countertop not twenty feet away from her, and, aside from being oblivious, Sam was far from stupid. Instead he said, "Well, I'm no expert on lasting relationships, you know that, but it seems to me that when you love someone--yes, I said 'love', I'm not allergic to it--you want what's best for them, even if that means you don't see them as much. I don't know if Sam ever told you this, but I almost stayed behind in Nebraska.”

“ _You_ almost let Sam move across the country without you? Why?”

Dean sighed. A Brief History of the Winchesters, chapter four. “I figured he'd be so busy with school, and he wouldn't need me holding him back. And then, he comes home to the shithole apartment we're living in and says he's giving up his scholarship to Stanford. Says he doesn't want to go without me. I was in a bad place back then, but that woke me up, you know? It's not about me, and if Sam wants to go to school, then he should go to school, and I can't be a negative Nancy about it. I bought our plane tickets the next day."

“I thought you drove out here?”

“We did. Got to the airport and everything, and then I get a good look at the tin can that they want me to be five miles up in the air in, and I booked it outta there faster than you can say Hindenberg.”

Jess chuckled. “I guess I never have to worry about you going on vacation to Hawaii and never coming back, huh?”

“No, you don’t. Hawaii’s not my style. I might just drive up to the redwoods and disappear though,” Dean joked, “Or you might have to worry about me and Sam heading back to Nebraska, if that’s he wants after law school.”

Jess didn't say anything for a minute or two, just slurped on her milkshake. "What about what you want, Dean?" she asked at last. "Isn't what _you_ want important too?"

Dean shrugged. "I've been taking care of Sam since I was sixteen. I'm not like Sam. I'm not smart enough for school or whatever. All I've ever wanted is what's best for Sam. Took me a few years to figure that out, though. Teenage angst and all that." 

“You don’t talk about Nebraska much.”

“Don’t really have much reason to.”

"Don't you ever regret it?" pressed Jess,"Not doing anything just for you?"

"Taking care of Sam is what I know. I did it as much for me as I did for him, but I don't know," admitted Dean, "I try not to think about it." That was only half-true. He never had and never would regret taking care of Sam, but sometimes, sometimes he did wonder who he would be now if his Friday nights hadn't been consumed by bottles of Jack Daniels and John Winchester’s booze-induced puking. 

Jess said, "Well, you did a good job with him."

"I did the best I could."

"Dean, take the compliment. Sam is a good man because that's how you raised him to be."

"Yeah, and you're not so bad yourself, so stop dating douchebags." 

Jess laughed. "Well, if your brother ever wakes up and notices me, he's got my number." She grabbed the plate of food she'd prepared for Sam and left the kitchen. Dean stayed back there a while, making sure everything was operating smoothly. 

A few hours later had him laying on the couch in his office, regretting his decision to spend all morning reorganizing the walk-in freezer. He wasn’t sixteen anymore, and his legs painfully reminded him of that. He groaned as he stretched them out, extending them over the arm rest and letting them hang over the side. Yeah, definitely not sixteen anymore. 

His phone buzzed, but it was on his desk on the other side of his office so Dean opted to ignore it until Jess or Sam walked in and could hand it to him. 

Which, of course, Sam did moments later. 

“Hey, Sammy! Hand me my phone, would ya?”

Sam bitchfaced him for a minute but grabbed Dean’s phone from the desk anyway. “You’re so lazy sometimes.” His brother looked down at the phone and frowned. “Who’s texting you cat pictures?”

“We can’t all be overachievers in law school. And stop looking at my phone.” He snatched it away from Sam. Heh. A Gollum cat. He texted a quick reply. _Is that his purrrrcious? ;)_

“Who are you texting?”

Dean shoved his phone in his pocket, which wasn’t a simple thing because he was laying down. “Nobody.”

“The only people you text are me, Jess, and Ellen. And occasionally Jo. Are you texting Jo? You know that Ellen will _kill_ you before she’d ever let you date her daughter, right?”

Dean sighed. “I’m not texting Jo.”

“Right. I saw you text a winky face. You don’t text winky faces to ‘nobody.’”

“What are you, twelve? Who says ‘winky face’?”

Sam sighed, and Dean swore he heard a bitchface in his brother’s exhale. "She's a nice girl, but why don’t you just go out there and talk to her? Texting seems a little pointless," Sam said. He sounded defeated. 

“Wait, what? Who’s a nice girl?"

"Jess."

Dean damn near choked. He sputtered. "Where are you going with this, Sammy?"

"Nothing. I'm just saying that she's nice. That's all."

Dean would laugh if it weren't so damn sad. "Yeah...that's not going to happen. Ever."

"Why not? She's a good girl."

"No argument there."

"Then what's the problem?"

"You need to stop studying so much."

"Stop changing the subject."

"She's just...Jess isn't _my_ type, okay?" Dean stood and made to leave the office, but his moose of a brother blocked the doorway. 

“Then who were you texting?” 

Wow, his brother really wasn’t going to let this one go. “Why does it matter, Sammy?”

One look at Sam’s face told Dean that the conversation had taken a wrong turn to Shitsville. He halfway expected Sam to bitchface him until he handed over his phone, so Sam could look at the texts himself. He knew that Sam was thinking about the days in Nebraska, the days when he’d told Sam to text a “friend” for him because he was too messed up to arrange his own rendezvous in the parking lot of the Lion’s Den. 

“You’re lying. Maybe not about Jess, but about something,” Sam said at last. He leaned in and deliberately smelled Dean’s breath. “Have you been _drinking_?”

“No.”

Sam sunk down into the couch. The look that Dean now saw on Sam’s face made him felt like he’d kicked a puppy with a steel-toed boot. It was the same look that Sam had whenever their father had come home with Jack Daniels instead of groceries. “I thought we were past this,” Sam said. The younger Winchester’s voice quivered, just slightly. Just enough for Dean to know how badly he had fucked up. 

“Jess and I had milkshakes with a little something, but it was no worse than cough syrup,” promised Dean. 

“Oh so this was Jess’s idea?”

“She didn’t _know_ , Sammy.”

“Then why didn’t you tell her, _Dean_?”

Dean remembered a night five years before when his brother had stayed by his side and watched every terrible Nicolas Cage movie they could find on cable. Sam hadn’t left him alone, not once. Not then, and not a day since. So he swore to Sammy that it wasn’t serious. It wasn’t like last time.

It wasn’t like their dad.

“Then what is it, Dean? I don’t understand.”  

“It’s nothing. Jess was having a bad day so she needed some liquid courage, ya know?”

Sam’s glare could make the devil himself rethink his life choices. "So, rather than admit that you're a recovered substance abuser, you let your employee bring booze on the job?" Sam ran his hands over his face. "This is stupid, Dean. Even for you."

Five years ago, Dean had promised never to touch the bottle again (or the pills, or whatever substance he'd been abusing that week). He’d meant it. Two years ago, they’d gotten word of their father’s death. John Winchester had wrapped his car around a tree, a bottle of Jack in his hand. “At least he died with the love of his life,” Sam had said bitterly. That had cured Dean of any desire to ever hit the bottle again, but he'd never figured that there was any harm in sneaking a nip now and again with Jess. 

Sam’s face told him that yes, there was plenty of harm that could be done. 

He collapsed onto the couch next to his brother. Fuck. He rubbed a hand along his jaw. When they were kids, Sam used to read the Hardy boys to him whenever he got sick. He used to dream that they were like those brothers, that they would go off and solve cases and have adventures, but then he’d wake up to their dad passed out in his own puke. They were cheated. They didn’t get the white picket fence and apple pie childhood. They got shit. Sam reading to him? That was the closest to normal it ever got, until John Winchester walked out the front door and never came back. California was their chance for normal, but it seemed that the past, as much as Dean wanted it to stay there, behind him and out of sight, could still creep out and bite him in the ass. 

He put an arm around Sam’s shoulders, which was a bit awkward as Sam was four inches taller, but it was the big brother thing to do. “I fucked up, okay? I know what you're going to say: I should have told Jess. I shouldn't have put myself in that situation. Peer pressure. Blah blah blah. I swear, Sammy, I'll break the next bottle that Jess brings in here," he promised. 

He expected a repeat of the Nebraska Lecture, in which Sam told Dean that drugs were bad, that he deserved better, that John Winchester’s shitty parenting didn’t have to ruin their lives. What Sam actually said surprised Dean. 

“You’re not him, you know. You’re nothing like him,” Sam said. 

Since John Winchester’s death, he’d been spoken about exactly three times. The first was to discuss funeral arrangements, the second was to discuss the debt that they’d inherited from him, and the third was when the brothers had found out they had a half-brother who lived in Minnesota. This was the fourth time, and there was a sense of finality to it. For Sam, it was probably the last time he'd mention their father. For Dean, it was the answer to a question he'd been asking for the past five years, and now he was ready to shut, bolt, and cement shut that door to the fucked up part of their past that was John Winchester. 

"I am sorry," said Dean. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd said it and truly meant it. The girl in tenth grade (whose name he no longer remembered) who had told him she loved him, and all he could say was "I'm sorry," as he zipped his fly and left her alone in the backseat of her car. The first time Ellen and Sam had visited him in rehab, he'd slammed the door so hard in their faces the wall had cracked. He'd called Ellen later and apologized, surprised to find that he meant it. Sam came back the next day and looked at Dean the same way he used to look at their dad. That "I'm sorry" had never been said aloud, but it had echoed in every AA meeting Dean attended, and every liquor store and bar that he drove by without stopping. 

This apology was something Dean should have said years ago. It was too little, he knew, but it was better than nothing. 

Sam seemed to understand, though, because he was the best damn person in Dean's life. "Tell Jess about Nebraska," was all his brother said. 

And that was that. Chick flick moments weren’t really the Winchesters’ style. They'd probably fight about it again, in a month or two when they'd run out of stupid things to nitpick each other for. An hour later, he gave up “working” (meaning he sat in his office texting) and left Jess in charge of the diner. Sam was still at the counter studying. Jess leaned over the counter, her arms animating the story she was telling his brother. The waitress had managed to make his brother smile and laugh, in spite of the seriousness of their earlier conversation, with anecdotes about the pranks she played on her two younger sisters (Dean was admittedly impressed by the creative uses Jess had for dental floss). 

Dean wondered if his life were really a chick flick, and if this was the moment when Sam realized he could get the girl.He pulled out his phone, snapped a photo of the two, and attached it to a text message. _would u believe they r not 2gether? idiots. ;)_

** DAY 200  **

To Cas: _this might be weird to ask in a txt but i dnt know ur wrk sched_ 7:46 p.m.

To Cas: _would u like 2 get coffee 2morrow?_ 7:47 p.m.

From Cas: _what time?_ 7:50 p.m.

To Cas: _9 @ douce france?_ 7:52 p.m.

From Cas: _I will be there._ 7:53 p.m.

To Cas: _see ya then :)_ 7:54 p.m.

From Cas: _I am very much looking forward to it._ 7:55 p.m.

** DAY 220  **

From Jo: _you ever gonna call me and tell me about this Castiel who keeps_ _liking all your pics on FB?_ 2:17 p.m.

To Jo: _never_ 3:02 p.m.

That evening, Dean changed the privacy settings on all of his photos. 

** DAY 261  **

"I know this is awkward. I mean, I know we’ve known each other for a while now, but you know. It’s different. This is different." said Dean. He looked at the edge of his cardboard coffee cup, mapping the slightly bent ridge with his finger. "I, oh I don't know. I guess I just wanted to talk?" He wasn't sure why he phrased that last part like a question. There was no question in his mind if he wanted to be at the _Douce France_ bakery. 

The man across from him smiled, soft and genuine. “It’s alright, Dean,” he said. “We don’t have to say anything at all, if you do not want to. Enjoying our coffee and each other’s presence is good enough for me.” As if to prove a point, he took an extra-long sip out of his macchiato. 

“Castiel--,” Dean began. 

The man shushed him. “We’re past that, right? I told you that ‘Cas’ is perfectly acceptable, didn’t I?”

“But you said you didn’t like nicknames,” Dean protested.

“I didn’t,” said Castiel, “But people can change, can’t they? Besides, you giving me a nickname makes me feel more comfortable around you, like we’re really friends.”

“Of course we’re friends, _Cas_.” 

“Then tell me what’s on your mind,” Cas said, “That is, if you’re comfortable enough to converse with me about it.” 

“I was thinking about what you said in that text the other day, about how I should put myself out there more. Really enjoy life and whatever.” He stopped for a breath. Or ten. He really hated talking about his feelings, even if it was with Cas (and talking with Sam was even worse). Dean continued, “And I don’t know, maybe I should do more of that.” Sure, the other man had given him the option of sitting there in silence, but Dean wanted to hear Castiel’s voice, to memorize the patterns his lips made when he over-enunciated words, to see the way the man’s blue eyes brightened when he found something amusing. Sam would probably say that this qualified as a definite chick flick moment. Dean found himself reevaluating the qualities of the entire genre. 

Cas’s smile filled the room. "I am glad. You deserve to enjoy life," he said. He paused, words poised on his lips like divers preparing for the plunge. Cas didn't speak anymore, though. Dean knew that if it were Sam sitting across from him, the words would springboard into a lengthy lecture about "emotional well-being" and "psychological resilience," culminating in yet another attempt to get Dean to take a vacation. Even though he'd known Cas only a few months, Cas never pushed him to step further than he was comfortable. Sam was like the tide: a never-ending push-and-pull on Dean, yet always a constant and reassuring presence. Cas, well, Cas was different. He supposed that Cas was like his pulse, soft and steady and ever-present. Maybe he really had entered a chick flick, because comparing Castiel to a heartbeat was seriously close to the shit Nicholas Sparks franchised. 

"I don't think I've ever seen you smile," said Dean. He was absolutely not deflecting his own inner monologue. "It's weird." 

"Perhaps it's just an unusual day. We have visited this establishment several times and this is the first time you've not ordered pie."

"Yeah, well maybe I'm watching my figure."

The look Cas gave him was two thirds "you're full of shit" and one third flirting. Cas spoke slowly, giving Dean time to digest each word. "I can assure you that your physique is just as impressive as it was the day we met. Perhaps more so, knowing you as I do now." He stood, brushing out the imaginary creases in his navy dress slacks. "Pecan or cherry?"

"Pecan."

"I'll return momentarily," Cas said. He moved to the back of the bakery and stood in the long line of people waiting to purchase carbicidal items. 

Momentarily. That was a word that Dean hadn't heard since he'd helped Sam prep for the SATs ten years before. It meant "soon"...or was it "at any moment?" Sometimes Castiel--Cas--had a vocabulary that only Sam could fully appreciate. Sam. Oh shit, it was Tuesday. Tuesdays were the day that Sam dropped by _Douce France_ to pick up the diner's standing order of pastries. He scanned the checkout line and saw Cas smack in the middle of it. He hoped Cas would understand when he explained that they had to go, that Sam didn't _know_ yet. 

When Sam was seven years old, he had broken their mother's antique handheld mirror, one of the few things they had of hers that their father hadn't sold for booze. Sam had cried for hours, convinced that he had a lifetime of bad luck, until Dean told him that he'd take all of his bad luck for him. 

Sam walked into _Douce France_ and headed straight for his table, convincing Dean that the bad luck curse was real. How was he supposed to explain Cas? This wasn’t a conversation he was prepared to have. 

"Hey Dean, what are you doing here?" asked Sam. He flopped onto Cas's abandoned chair. "I thought you had the morning off."

“I do. You don’t. Get outta here,” Dean replied, his voice rough with irritation. A quick look told him that Cas was still in line, chatting  awkwardly with the woman in front of him. 

Sam shook his head, and Dean swore he saw a couple of teenage girls behind his brother sigh at the sight of Sam’s hair swishing back and forth. Perhaps it was a good thing that the younger Winchester was oblivious to his effect on women. “You asked me to pick up the bakery order on Tuesdays, remember?” Sam reminded him. “I just don’t get why you asked me to do it when you’re here anyway.”

Because Dean had forgotten that he’d asked Sam to do it in the first place. Instead he said, “Can’t a man get a cup of coffee without interrogation?” 

Sam looked at Dean’s cup of coffee, and then at the half-drunk macchiato in front of him. The macchiato that most certainly wasn’t his; Sam had once told Dean that he didn’t think his brother could drink anything sweeter than battery acid (Dean had never mentioned his secret love of caramel frappes). Sam stared at the macchiato until Dean was sure that his brother was attempting to absorb the caffeine through telepathy or telekinesis or whatever. “Yeah, so I guess I’ll leave you to your coffee,” he said, never taking his eyes off the macchiato. “I’ll just pick up the order and be on my way.” The gigantor stood, as awkward as a newborn giraffe finding its legs. “See ya later.” The way Sam’s eyes flicked around the crowded room told Dean that his brother was looking for the macchiato’s owner. Sam’s eyes never stopped on Cas.

“See ya,” said Dean. He shooed his brother away. 

Sam stared at the macchiato pointedly one last time, and then left the bakery. He came back in thirty seconds later when he realized he’d left without the order for the diner. Dean almost felt sorry for him, but decided that if Sam wasn’t going to ask, he wasn’t going to tell. Worked for the Army. 

When Cas returned to their table a few minutes later, a ginormous serving of pecan pie in hand, Dean blurted out, “Sam was here. I didn’t know how to tell him about you. Me. Us. Whatever.” 

No one would ever describe Dean Winchester as “eloquent.”

Cas set the pie down in front of Dean. He handed him a fork. Silent and efficient. Cas grabbed his own fork and took the first bite of the pie. Dean let him. As he chewed his bite, he watched Dean, as if the Winchester were a skittish horse about to bolt. 

Dean had thought about it. More than once. 

“You are still uncomfortable with the idea of telling Sam,” Cas said, “That’s perfectly normal. I do, however, wish that you had someone to talk to. A friend or confidante is quite invaluable, or so I am told.” He slid the pie across the table to Dean, a simple and familiar gesture, but one of profound importance to Dean. He’d never met anyone quite like Cas; people who entered Dean’s life typically fell into one of two categories: Sam or Not Sam (the former often influenced the acknowledged importance of people in the latter category). Dean knew from the moment he met Castiel Novak that there were now three categories for people in his life: Sam, Castiel, and Everyone Else. Dean supposed that it mostly had to do with the way in which he had first met Castiel. Most people tiptoed in and out of lives, like a backstage tech crew, but meeting Cas was like a volcanic eruption, permanently altering the landscape of Dean’s life. 

“I don’t know how to tell Sam,” Dean said. “But Ellen knows. She was here last week. Took one look at me and knew something was up.” He took a bite of pecan pie. God, that was good. 

“How do you feel about that? I know how important Ellen is to you,” Cas said. His eyes were big and blue and earnest and Dean wondered what it would be like to drown in them. 

This was the truth as far as Dean could tell it to Cas: he would be nowhere if it weren’t for Ellen Harvelle.It was Ellen who’d taken them in when John Winchester had left them with nothing but a half-eaten bag of Cheetos and a broken down 67 Impala. It was Ellen who had slapped him across the face and dragged him into rehab when he was too drunk to stand up. It was Ellen who had taught him how to cook and how to manage a restaurant, and it was Ellen who invested money in Dive Burger so Dean could stay in California with Sam. He owed Ellen much more than money, so when she asked for the truth, he’d given it to her. 

He didn’t have to ask her not to tell Sam. 

Castiel’s phone chirped, and he frowned as he looked at his text messages. Dean catalogued Castiel’s facial expressions by intensity of the furrowing of his brow. This was Frown #5: the “I-have-to-go-to-work-but-I-don’t-want-to” frown, accompanied by the “will-you-be-okay-without-me” eyebrow lift. 

“Go,” said Dean. “I’m fine. Promise.”

Castiel stood. He leaned over and stole another bite of Dean’s pie. “I can see why you like this so much,” he said. 

“Stop stealing my pie, dude.” He didn’t budge a centimeter when Cas took one last bite, though. 

Cas shrugged into his tan trenchcoat, which Dean jokingly called his “security blanket” since it had appeared every time they went out for coffee or pie or cheeseburgers. Before he left the bakery, Cas put a hand on Dean’s shoulder, strong and reassuring, and said to him, “Please consider talking to Ellen. As fond as I am of our time together, I think you would benefit from talking to someone else about everything.”

“I’ll think about it,” Dean promised. 

He watched Cas walk away from the table and out of the bakery, his steps quick but steady, like a heartbeat, and wow, where did that come from?

It was then that Dean realized that his life truly had become a chick flick. 

He texted Sam: _If i ever meet Nicholas Sparks i am punching him in the throat._ 9:42 a.m.

From Sam: _???_ 9:43 a.m.


	2. Vital Signs

**DAY 316**

Two hundred miles and three thermoses of coffee later, Dean finally decided to check his text messages while he was filling up the Impala. He had one text reminder of an appointment--delete--one text from an ex-girlfriend--delete--and a dozen or so from his brother and Jess, which were the only ones he bothered to read. 

From Sammy: _dude I know you took the day off but did you REALLY have to_ _pick a Monday?_ 6:23 a.m.

From Sammy: _Jess is a bear in the morning. How do you deal with her_ _everyday???_ 6:36 a.m.

From Jess: _your brother is useless. but cute._ 7:02 a.m.

From Sammy: _dude who puts pickles in an omelette? btw where do you keep extras? i’m scared to ask jess anything before noon_ 7:38 a.m.

From Jess: _your bro just looked for pickles under the sink. idiot_. 7:41 a.m.

From Jess: _you leave me alone with your bro again and i quit._ 8:29 a.m.

From Sammy: _tryin 2 do hw on break. did u change wifi pw?_ 9:04 a.m.

From Sammy: _srsly i need pw!!!_ 9:10 a.m.

From Sammy: _jess won’t tell me pw. why did u hire her_ 9:12 a.m.

From Jess: _fyi_ _new wifi pw is jessisthesupremeoverlord_ 9:13 a.m.

From Sammy: _really need to study, dude. make her tell me._ 9:17 a.m.

Leaving those two alone together to run the diner was either the best or the worst thing Dean had ever done to the business, but as Sam was so fond of saying, sometimes even the boss needed a break. He tapped out a short text to Sam: _i didnt change pw. better be good to jess._ To Jess he simply wrote: _nice._

He was about 150 miles away from Crescent City and the Redwood National Park. Ellen would describe the drive as “an easy stroll through good country.” The drive through the most northern part of California was about as different from his hometown in Nebraska as it could get. Nebraska was all flat land and open sky, but California was mountains, beaches, and sunshine. The last time he’d done a long drive was when he and Sam had moved to California nearly five years earlier. He remembered the long stretch of roads across Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado. On roads like these, over flat lands or not, there was not much to do except look at cornfields or forests and think. He thought about the world's largest ball of twine, about signs in cornfields that said, “Abortion is murder” or “Jesus is the only way,” but mostly he thought about Sam, who loved big skies and fluffy clouds, and Nebraska had plenty of both.He often wondered why Sam had chosen a university so different from the home he loved. 

During the long stretches of Highway 101, memories raced by him like mile markers, measuring the length of his thoughts. At mile 64, there was memory of a day spent eating blackberries and singing “Hey Jude” with his mother. That night, when she had tucked him into bed, he had asked her if they could please name the new baby “Ringo.” Mile 89, the day he understood that “cancer” meant Mary Winchester would never make apple pie again. Mile 107, Sam’s first homework assignment in kindergarten was to draw a family portrait. There were only two people in his drawing.Mile 118, he gave Jo Harvelle her first kiss. She gave him a black eye and friendship. And then, about twenty miles from Crescent City, a memory of his father showed up in a cloud that looked like the symbol for pi.

He had just learned how to calculate the area of a circle. He was nine, maybe ten years old, and his teacher, Mrs. Ciotta, had called his father in for a parent-teacher conference. He was sitting in the back of her classroom, quietly calculating the circumference of extra-large pizzas and frisbees while the grown ups talked. Dean wasn’t supposed to be present, but when John had looked Mrs. Ciotta straight in the eye, lowered his voice, and said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I just have a hard time letting him out of my sight since his momma passed a few years ago. You understand, don’t you?” Mrs. Ciotta’s grandmotherly eyes had softened. “Of course,” she had said, “You’re such a good father for Dean. Not many men could shoulder the responsibility on their own, you know.”

Dean no longer remembered all of what his teacher and father had spoken about, but he did remember his father’s smile and noticing for the first time that John and Sam Winchester had matching dimples. It was one of the few times Dean could remember his father smiling after the death of Mary Winchester, before the booze and indifference had taken hold. For the rest of that school year, Mrs. Ciotta had asked Dean about his “darling father” on an almost weekly basis, even though his father had never shown up for another parent-teacher conference. He wondered why he thought about this, now, when he hadn’t thought about Mrs. Ciotta in probably ten years. Perhaps when memories came calling like door-to-door salesmen, he didn’t have much say in which ones came to call, so he shut the door in their face.

Less than ten miles away from his destination, he wished that the roads were a little emptier and the speed limit were a little higher so he could let the Impala sprint. Living where he did now, it had been a long time since he had felt the tires cling to the pavement like a life preserver, with centripetal force the only thing keeping his ass in the driver’s seat as he swung wide and fast through a curve. It had been a long time since he had felt alive while driving, but the sheriff’s car in his rearview mirror told him it would be longer still.

He stopped at the front gates of Redwood National Park to check his phone one more time. He figured there wouldn’t be any cell reception in the park, and even if it was his day off, he wanted to check up on how Jess and his brother were doing. 

He had two texts from Sam, three from Jess, and one each from Cas and Ellen. 

From Sammy: _your filing system makes no sense_ 12:01 p.m.

From Sammy: _i now see why you hired jess. you should give her a raise._ 12:13  p.m.

From Jess: _your brother is still useless. the cute can’t make up for it_ 12:22 p.m.

From Jess: _watching sam wait tables is like spotting bigfoot. i’m not sure i can_ _believe my own eyes._ 12:28 p.m.

From Jess: _your brother makes better milkshakes than you._ 12:32 p.m.

From Ellen: _enjoy the drive and the fresh air. call me later._ 12:37 p.m.

From Cas: _you spend your free time driving around aimlessly? seems rather counterproductive._ 12:43 p.m.

Well, it seemed like Jess and Sam had managed to work together without him after all. 

To Jess: _don’t tell him that. he’s already got a big enough ego._ 12:51 p.m.

To Sammy: _ur welcome for the lesson on milkshake making_ 12:51 p.m.

To Ellen: _sure thing mama E_ 12:52 p.m.

To Cas: _it’s about the journey, not the destination. besides, i never criticize ur_ _hobbies._ 12:53 p.m.

Cas answered almost immediately. _you have never asked how I spend my free time._ 12:54 p.m.

Cas must have been on a break at work. Dean looked longingly at the forest, fingers itching to get back on the wheel and drive. To _move._

To Cas: _you have free time? and here i thought you did nothing but work :P_ 12:55 p.m.

The emoticon was maybe too flirty, but Dean pushed send before he thought too hard about it.

From Cas: _yes, I do have days off. they're about as often as yours,however._ 12:57 p.m.

Dean suddenly felt guilty. He kinda just assumed that if Cas wasn't working, he was with one of his brothers. Or with Dean. That second one was always preferable to the first, according to Cas. 

To Cas: _ok so what DO u do on a day off? (when ur not enjoying my awesome presence) :P_ 12:58 p.m.

Since when did he use emoticons?

From Cas: _Come to St. Ann's and I will show you._ 12:59 p.m.

To Cas: _The church?_ 12:59 p.m.

From Cas: _yes._ 1:00 p.m.

The last time Dean had set foot in a church, his mother had been alive. Her funeral had been graveside. "God didn't save her," his father had said, "So why should I pay for a church blessed by a god that doesn't care?" 

It was one of the few things that Dean had agreed with John Winchester about. 

To Cas: _i'm actually in crescent city today. wanted to see the trees._ 1:01 p.m.

From Cas: _so it is about the destination, then. your hobby isn't so pointless after all._ 1:02 p.m.

To Cas: _yeah idk. i've always liked driving. it's the closest i'll ever get to flying._ _what about ur hobby?_ 1:03 p.m.

From Cas: _what about it? I told you how to find me._ 1:03 p.m.

To Cas: _oh it's like that is it? :P_ 1:04 p.m.

Okay, so emoticons in texts to Cas were a thing. 

From Cas: _I guess it is._ 1:05 p.m.

To Cas: _so u spend ur free time @ church? weird_ 1:06 p.m.

Cas didn't respond. Dean assumed (hoped) that he'd gotten called back into work. They had very pointedly avoided the religion conversations, even though Dean knew that Cas attended services every week. It's not that he _cared_ that Cas was a Christian; most people he knew were, including Sam. He just didn’t _like_ the look churchgoers got in their eyes when he said he didn’t believe, like he had leprosy or something. A lack of religion did not indicate a lack of morality. Or so Sam had told the last evangelist to knock on their door. 

Friggin smartass. 

His phone chirped. Another text message. 

From Cas: _tell me about the trees._ 1:09 p.m.

Dean put the car in drive and headed toward the park entrance. 

** DAY 345  **

From Sammy: _why is there an espresso machine in our apartment?_ 10:32 a.m.

To Sammy: _i hear caffeine helps with PMS_ 11:17 a.m.

From Sammy: _jerk_ 11:31 a.m.

To Sammy:   _bitch_ 11:38 a.m.

** DAY 375  **

Dean felt like he was free-falling. The development of his friendship with Cas--the once-a-week meetups at coffee shops, the occasional lunch, the hours spent convincing Cas that not all work should be done behind a desk--had reached terminal velocity. 

Dean couldn't fall any faster, and he didn't know if there was a parachute to break his fall. 

It had been twenty-seven days since he had seen Cas. Not that Dean was counting. They had texted continuously for weeks, but first Cas was out of town and then Dean was out of town and then Ellen was in town and then Cas was out of town again. Dean had quickly discovered that trying to coordinate their schedules felt like losing at Tetris. 

On his next day off, he texted Cas. _Beach today?_ 5:16 a.m.

It was early, really goddamn early, but Dean’s left leg had a cramp that wouldn’t go away. He was already on his third cup of coffee.

From Cas: _It’s almost October._ 5:31 a.m.

He texted back. _So?_ 5:32 a.m.

From Cas: _meet you there. bring coffee._ 5:33 a.m.

To Cas: _Macchiato w/extra shot?_ 5:34 a.m.

From Cas: _yes please. With caramel._ 5:35 a.m.

An hour later, after telling Sam a flimsy story about going to a concert in San Francisco (morning concerts are a thing, he’d told his brother), Dean pulled into the parking lot at Gray Whale Cove State Beach. It was one of the first places he and Sam had visited when they had moved to California, and it had remained one of Dean's favorites. Never having left the state of Nebraska, Sam had insisted that the Pacific Ocean top their must-see list when they had first moved here all those years ago. 

When Dean thought about that day, he could still hear Sam's girlish squeal as his toes touched the cold and brisk sea water for the first time. He could still see the look of panic on Sam's face when he realized that the tide was stronger than him, and the way Sam's eyes lit up when he saw a whale breach the ocean's surface. Looking back, Dean wondered how many of these firsts should have been moments that they shared with their mother. Or with their father. It made him angry, irrationally angry, to think of how their lives should have gone, to think of every instance in their past that should have had a reservation for four instead of two. The anger erupted, lightning hot, but like a bolt of lightning, it disappeared just as quickly, leaving in its wake the charred scarring of loneliness and anguish. 

The feeling Dean had then was nothing like anger as he thought of the empty seats at birthdays, Christmases, and weddings that had yet to come. It wasn't fucking fair to him, or to Sam, and not for the last time Dean wondered who they had pissed off in a previous life to get dealt such a shitty hand of cards. 

When Dean saw a familiar mop of dark hair on the other side of the parking lot, he decided that the past could stay behind him and rot. He had other things to worry about, like making sure Cas got his macchiato before it became lukewarm and disgusting. He sent a quick text to Jess checking on the status of the diner, and another to Sam, telling him to be nice to Jess. Not that Sam needed the reminder. 

He swung his long legs out of the Impala and made his way over to his friend. "Hey," he said, as he handed Cas his coffee. 

"Hello, Dean," said Cas, his voice rough as if he had just woken up. He cradled the thermos Dean had handed to him and took a sip. “Mmmmmm,” he said, licking his lips. “This is delicious.”

“I, uh, made it myself.” 

“I did not know that you were an accomplished barista.”

“I’m not,” Dean said. “Uh, I got an espresso machine and figured I’d learned how to use it.” He shrugged. 

“It’s quite good.” He paused. "Did you know that the average ocean temperature here is 55 degrees?" 

Of course Cas would know random shit like that. "No, I didn't," said Dean. "Tell me more."

"On average, an adult will reach a hypothermic state within one to two hours at that temperature. Survival expectancy is--wait, you were being sarcastic, weren't you?"

Dean laughed, the humor rolling deep in his gut. This weird little guy (although 'little' was subjective since he was accustomed to Sam's gigantor presence) never ceased to amaze Dean with his random knowledge. The first time they'd gotten coffee together, Cas had told him that "cartilogenophobia" was the fear of bones. 

Dean was still proud that he had refrained from making any boner jokes.

"Sometimes I wonder why we're friends," Cas huffed, taking a long sip of his beverage. The defiant look on his friend's face was enough to make Dean laugh again. 

"I wonder that almost every day," Dean replied. He only sort-of meant it as a joke. 

Cas didn't say anything, not that Dean expected him to. Cas had once told him that as a child, he'd been abnormally quiet. Dean didn't press him into talking about it, because wouldn't _that_ be ironic, but he got the sense that Cas had never spoken much at all. Cas looked like a turtle receding into its shell whenever a stranger asked him the time of day. 

Without another word, Cas led them down to the cove, even though it was mid-September and Cas, a southern Californian by birth, described it as “absolutely freezing.” It was still early enough in the day that the sun hadn't broken through the marine layer, and the fog hugged the coast, a blanket of murk and mystery. The fog made the already-chilly air even nippier, and Cas gathered his trenchcoat around him, like a child burrowing into a blanket for warmth and comfort. The dark-haired man planted himself on the cold sand, taking off his shoes and burying his toes in it. 

Dean really was turning into a sap, because all he could think of was how the grey sky made Cas's eyes a crystal blue, and how the dull roar of the waves would be the perfect backdrop to a first kiss. 

He plopped down on the sand next to his friend, and for a long time they sat, quiet and content. Ten years before, Dean wouldn't have been able to sit still. He would have been running, jumping, tearing through the surf and not giving a shit about possible hypothermia. 

His phone chirped. A text from Jess. 

From Jess: _diner's fine. Sam hasn't burned it down yet. someday ur going to tell_ _me what u do on ur days off._ 7:01 a.m.

"Jess?" asked Cas.

"Yeah," said Dean. He shoved his phone back in his pocket, kinda mad that Jess had ruined the moment. 

Cas began drawing in the sand, his fingertip tracing patterns that Dean didn't recognize or understand, a language unique to Castiel. A language that Dean wanted to speak. "Have you ever read ' _Harold and the Purple Crayon_?'" asked Cas. 

"No," replied Dean, "Isn't that a kids’ book?"

Cas nodded, and then explained the plot to Dean. Apparently Harold was a little boy who wanted to talk a walk in the moonlight, but there was no moon, so he took his purple crayon and drew one, eventually creating an entire world from his imagination. It was the weird kind of book that Cas would enjoy and Dean wished his mom had been around to read to him and Sam.

“What’s your point, Cas?”

Cas continued drawing in the dirt, long loopy curls that looked like slinkys. "Harold knew that the world is what you make it, even if you only have one single crayon.”

“I’m not following.”

 “You say you wonder why we're friends; it is because we are drawing our own worlds, and I've drawn you a place in mine."

"Shit, Cas,” he swore. “That's deep, man."

" _Harold and the Purple Crayon_ is a 'deep' book. I have learned many valuable things from it." 

Dean had expected Cas's favorite book to be a tome on the migration patterns of bees in the Western Hemisphere or a wordy biography on Peter Ganine, the inventor of the rubber duck. In the back of Dean's mind, there was a running list of things that surprised him. #64. Sam's falsetto. #40. Ellen's collection of high heels. #29. Jess speaking Spanish fluently. #17. His own attraction to _Full House_ ’s “Uncle Jesse.” The list shifted and changed, but there had been a constant #1 for the past nine months: Castiel Novak. 

"Why that book?" asked Dean.

Cas laid back on the sand. "Why not?" he said. "Because it is for children? I did not read it until I was an adult, and I still find its message to be profoundly moving." He closed his eyes. Dean imagined that Cas was orchestrating music in his mind to the rhythm of the tide. 

Damn, he really had it bad. 

"What is your favorite book?" Cas asked him. His eyes were still closed. 

" _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ ," he replied. "Have you read it?"

"A book about censorship, extreme nationalism, and psychological manipulation? No, I have not," answered Cas. “I prefer books that are spiritually and emotionally uplifting.”

"It's about more than that,"Dean protested. 

Cas opened his eyes. He quirked one eyebrow, a signature move that Dean wished he could replicate. "Really? Tell me more," he drawled. 

"It's about, you know, standing up to The Man. Fighting for your rights, for your free will. That stuff." 

Cas chuckled. The laugher shook his shoulders. "It's strange how our interests reflect our personalities," he said. "How they reflect our personal histories. Your favorite book tells me more about you than I learned in the first month of our acquaintance."

What Cas said was true, now that Dean thought of it. He didn't know much about Cas's childhood, but what he did know wasn't pretty. Cas's favorite book made sense when Dean thought of the little boy whose best friend was a stuffed octopus. 

"Sam's favorite book is _The Brothers Karamazov._ What does that say about him?"

Apparently, it said quite a bit, judging by how much Cas had to say on the matter. The two men bantered and laughed until long after the sun had broken through the fog, only finally being disturbed by the insistent chirping of Dean's phone. 

From Sammy: _did u know that Jess is single?_ 11:11 a.m.

Dean made a mental note to slap his brother upside the head later. 

His phone chirped again. 

From Sammy: _how is a girl like her single? she's amazing_ 11:12 a.m.

"Is that Jess again?" asked Cas.

Dean shook his head. "No, it's Sam." He showed Cas the text messages. "I think he's finally figured it out."

"About time," Cas muttered. 

To Sammy: _yeah? u figure that out all by urself?_ 11:14 a.m.

“Perhaps you should facilitate their relationship,” Cas suggested. 

“You mean matchmaking? Nah. Not my scene.” They both knew that was a lie, that Dean had continuously left Sam and Jess alone at the diner to “facilitate.” 

Dean wasn’t on matchmaking duty that day, however. He turned his phone off and spent the rest of the morning trying to figure out which side of Castiel's smile he liked best. 

** DAY 422  **

"Get up. You need a life."

Sam looked up from the laptop screen he had been staring at for the past four hours. Law books, legal notepads, and more post-its than environmentalists would approve of were strewn all around the younger Winchester. 

"Go away, Dean. I'm working on a paper," Sam said. 

"Yeah? When's it due?"

Sam shrugged, "Next week. I think?"

Dean reached around his brother and closed the laptop. He ignored the really not-nice things Sam said in protest. Then he told Sam that studying was lame. Sam called Dean a "mother hen." Dean said "YOLO" and threw a pair of jeans at Sam’s head.  

The argument ended with Sam grudgingly putting on a coat after Dean promised to buy him a beer. Or three. 

"You need to let loose," said Dean, "Have some fun. Meet a girl."

Sam glowered. Oh, that was a sore subject. "I _have_ met a girl."

"So? How's that working out for ya? Done something about it yet?" Dean didn’t wait for Sam’s answer; he pulled his phone out of his pocket and began tapping out a text to Jess. _headed out 4 drinks w/Sam. want 2 come with?_

“What are you doing?” asked Sam. 

“I’m inviting Jess,” replied Dean. 

“Why?”

“Because she’s our friend and she needs fun too.”

“Oh,” said Sam. He looked at Dean as if he were putting the pieces of a puzzle together. “Are you inviting anyone else?”

“No. Should I?” Dean was being deliberately difficult because they both knew what Sam was asking. Sam thought Dean had a secret girlfriend, and what would Sam’s face look like if he knew the truth? Dean had thought about inviting Cas, but Cas’s job interfered and, really, Dean didn’t know how to explain who Cas was to him. A friend? Yes, but was that all he was to Dean? He knew that Cas would tell him that he was being ridiculous, that he was trying to “quantify something that could only be qualified.” Whatever the hell that meant.Besides, this might be the night that Sam would finally make his move, that he would finally get the girl. He just didn’t know it yet. 

A text arrived from Jess. _sure. txt me address?_ 8:28 p.m.

“Jess is coming,” Dean confirmed. 

Sam’s eyes widened slightly from panic. “Uh, I’m gonna go change clothes,” he stammered. “Be right back.” He tore down the hallway of their apartment and slammed his bedroom door. 

“Frickin princess,” Dean muttered. He collapsed onto their worn-but-comfy sofa. He texted Jess the address to the bar and then flipped on the television. There was nothing on but the news and reruns of “The Simpsons,” and he wasn’t sure which was less appealing to watch. He left it on the news--Russia was acting like an asshat again--and texted Cas. _Hey whats up?_

It took Cas a few minutes to answer, in which time Sam came out in not one, not two, but _three_ different shirts, yet remained unhappy with his selections. Dean called him a teenage girl and Sam stomped away and slammed the door. 

No one could tell Dean he wasn’t mature. 

When he checked his phone again, he had three text messages from Cas. 

From Cas: _the accurate response would be to tell you that what is above you is relative to your physical positioning on the planet._ 8:32 p.m.

From Cas: _Somehow I do not think this is what you meant however_ 8:33 p.m.

From Cas: _I am at home. How are you today, Dean?_ 8:33 p.m.

Dean snorted. Nothing amused him half so much as Castiel’s text messages. Except for maybe that one episode of _Seinfeld_ where the guy wouldn’t give them any soup. That was a great episode. 

To Cas: _feelin good. gonna take sam & jess for drinks _8:34 p.m.

To Cas: _they r drinkin. im driving_ 8:34 p.m.

After that day which Dean now referred to as “the Milkshake Incident”, it had taken him months to persuade Sam that he could be trusted to go out on his own. He really _truly_ had no desire to fall off the wagon, but making Sam believe it? It would be easier to pass the _Twilight_ films off as Oscar-worthy productions. Dean suspected that the only reason that he was now being allowed inside a bar was because Sam would be there to punch him in the throat if he tried to order two fingers of whiskey. 

From Cas: _be safe._ 8:37 p.m.

To Cas: _always._ 8:37 p.m.

From Cas: _are you celebrating Halloween tonight?_ 8:38 p.m.

To Cas: _no just goin for drinks. u workin on that super secret hobby u wont tell_ _me about? :P_ 8:39 p.m.

From Cas: _no, not today. I suspect I will work on it tomorrow, however._ 8:40  p.m.

From Cas: _and it's not 'super secret.' you can drop by St. Ann's anytime and see_ _what I do._ 8:41 p.m.

Sam reappeared in the living room wearing a plaid shirt, jeans, and hiking boots. The look on his brother's face was one goofy grin away from "adorable puppy about to go on his first car ride." Not that he would ever tell Sam that he was adorable. Instead he defaulted to big brother teasing. "You can take the hick out of Nebraska," Dean started, letting his voice trail off. 

"Shut up."

"I hope Jess likes cornfed boys."

" _Shut up, Dean."_

"But really, the plaid is a good look for you. Very boy-next-door meets Canadian pornstar."

Sam grimaced. "Please don't ever say that again," he begged. "Can we just go now?"

"Sure thing." Dean scooped up his car keys and phone. "After you," he said, doing a mock bow. While Sam walked out of their apartment in front of him, Dean snapped a picture of his brother's outfit and texted Cas. _he's wearing the same shirt he wore yesterday. dork. :D_

From Cas: _You're not going to tell him, are you?_ 8:45 p.m.

"Who are you texting?" asked Sam. 

"The pharmacy. Your prescription of Midol is ready."

Sam growled at him to shut up and drive already. Sam really needed to get laid. 

The bar was one Dean had found on Yelp, and it was one of those places which only served local brews, which was all cool because Dean believed in supporting small businesses blahblahbah, but it also came with an organic menu and a hefty serving of hipster douchebags. 

Sam was going to hate it, because the only thing Sam Winchester hated more than hipsters was clowns. (Sam had once lectured him for a solid hour on the _distinct_ levels of douchebaggery that came with being an independent label elitist.)

The week before, during their biannual prank war, Sam had changed the voicemail message for Dean’s cell phone. Anyone who had called and left a message were greeted by “Dean Winchester’s House of Pain and Pleasure. I’m a bit busy cracking the whip at the moment, but please leave your name, number, and how rough you like it.” Dean hadn’t noticed for four days. His last voicemail from Ellen was six minutes of straight laughter. 

Dean could hardly control his glee as Sam strolled into the pretentiously unpretentious Number 90--named for its street address, Dean noted--and beelined for the bar. The bartender, who was in skinny jeans, a Vaudevillian moustache, and a Mr. Rogers cardigan, complimented Sam’s plaid shirt, saying that it was “totally deck.” 

The look on Sam’s face was equal parts horror and confusion. It was priceless. 

“ _Dean_ ,” he whined. “Where are we?”

“Look around, Sammy boy. Use all those inductive skills you got from school.”

“I think you mean ‘deductive.’”

“Whatever.”

The bartender looked between the two of them, unsure of what to make of the brothers. “Can I get you something to drink?” 

“Uh--I think we’re gonna,” began Sam. 

“Do you ever twirl your moustache and plan world domination?” Dean asked the guy. “Or tie damsels-in-distress to railroad tracks?”

Sam sighed, visually resigninghimself to a night in hipster land. “I’ll have a pint of whatever’s on tap,” he told the bartender. Turning to Dean he said, “Well played.”

Sam slid the bartender an extra $20 to ensure that Dean got nothing stronger than coffee, and even though Dean swore it was unnecessary, he was secretly glad that Sam had taken the extra step to remove temptation. Jess showed up ten minutes after they arrived, sporting a little black dress and legs that a Rockette would murder for. Dean wolf-whistled at her, which earned him an elbow to the ribs from Sam and a death glare from Jess. He respected his brother's feelings for the girl, but damn did she look good. "If you wore dresses like that to work, I'd be making a lot more money," Dean told her. 

"Well, you'd have to be, to be able to afford all the sexual harassment lawsuits," she replied. "But I suppose that you're telling me I look nice, even if it is a skeezy way to do it." Jess wore her long blonde hair down for once, and when she flipped it over her shoulder, Dean would later tell Castiel that he saw Sam's eyes just about leap out of his skull. She pulled up a barstool and stretched her long legs in front of her. Sam turned alittle pale, and Dean wondered if he might faint. "So, I thought we were here to drink, boys? Well, not Dean, so I guess it's you and me, Sammy boy." She ordered two shots of tequila and handed Sam his with a mischievous wink. "Bottoms up," she said. "Loser takes the opening shift for a week."

Poor Sammy didn't stand a chance. 

It took an hour, three shots of tequila, and a pint of a local brew to get Sam to even respond to Jess's flirting with more than the barest of nods. Some band named "The Heroes of Yesterday" (or some equally metaphorically bullshitted name) was finishing up another set about unrequited love and sunrises at the beach. The bar was about half-full, and Dean sipped on a virgin Cuba Libre (AKA a Coca-Cola) as he texted Cas, who had begun to micromanage Dean's matchmaking scheme. 

From Cas: _you should probably cut them off from hard liquor._ 10:48 p.m.

From Cas: _has Sam asked about her family yet? women like to know that mencare._ 10:49 p.m.

To Cas: _srsly sam isn't doing anything. jess is doing all the talking_ 10:50 p.m.

He ordered another Coke from the bartender, who looked personally offended  that Dean dared to order something with high fructose corn syrup in it, and assessed the situation. Jess was lively, talkative, and flirty. Sam? He’d seen trees that showed more emotion. His phone chirped. Another text from Cas. _perhaps it's time you help them out?_ 10:53 p.m.

In the past, Dean probably would have hit on Jess to get the point across to Sam. Even now, he's tempted to pay one of these guys who wear pants as tight as Satan's asshole to buy Jess a drink and make Sam jealous. It would work (probably) but Sam would (definitely) be upset with him afterward, and Sam had already been angry with Dean enough for one lifetime already. Possibly two. 

To Cas: _so what do i do?_ 10:55 p.m.

From Cas: _encourage him to show jess how he feels._ 10:57 p.m.

Great. How was he supposed to do that? 

From Cas: _talk to him._ 10:58 p.m.

Okay, he could do that. He slid off the barstool and told Sam he was going outside for a smoke. Predictably, Sam followed him outside to the bar's patio, his face scowling and sporting the "you're not getting away with this" bitchface. 

"Dean! We talked about this. You _promised_ me. No more alcohol, no cigarettes, no--"

"Relax, man," Dean interrupted. "I just wanted to get you away from Jess for a second."

"Why?"

“So we can talk about her.”

“Oh.” Sam tottered slightly, and maybe his brother had had too much alcohol to be having this conversation. Dean pressed on anyway, because Jess was inside and time was on the essence. Of the essence. However that saying went. 

Dean clapped a hand on his brother's shoulder, and it was an upward stretch that made his shoulder feel weird. "Sammy, ah, there comes a time when you just have to, uh, go for it. Just get in there and do it." 

"Um, okay?" Sam's face reflected his confusion. 

"Jess, Sam. I'mtalking about Jess."

"Oh, uh, okay. Um, yeah." 

Dean sighed. "Okay so you've either had too much or not enough to drink, depending on your point of view. Now listen up: Jess is a friggin fantastic girl, and if you don't get your Sasquatch ass in there and buy her a drink, I will pay to have the word 'chickenshit' embroidered on every shirt you own."

Sam's mouth was slightly agape and resembling a codfish. Dean did him a favor and closed it. "Now, get in there, and have some fun." He shoved his brother back toward the bar. Sam fell over, sprawling across the pavement like a gigantor starfish. 

Oops. 

When they finally re-entered the bar, Jess was no longer sitting on her barstool. They found her again on the dancefloor (Dean strongly suspected she'd moved some chairs and commandeered the space) doing the Electric Slide. The Psychotic Yo-yos, or whatever the new band onstage was called, had switched songs mid-chorus to give Jess a proper rhythm. Maybe not all hipster bands were pretentious douchebags after all. 

When Jess spotted them, she slid over and pulled Sam onto the dance floor with her. Jess didn't know this, but the last time Sam had danced (eleven years ago and counting), he had sprained his ankle so bad he couldn't walk for days. So Jess's teaching Sam how to line dance? Kind of a big deal for the younger Winchester. 

There were precious few moments in Dean's thirty-three years when he felt anything like hope, such as the judge granting him and Ellen guardianship of Sammy, or walking out the rehab doors for the final time, or a stranger telling him that "it's not the wings that make an angel." Yet seeing Jess and Sam on the dance floor, happy and smiling, well, he kinda hoped they would always look so stupidly in love. 

He took a video of the two dancing fools and attached it in a text to Cas. _look atthese 2 idiots :)_

From Cas: _it's about time. think he'll ask her on a date?_ 11:19 p.m.

To Cas: _if he doesn't he's a moron_ 11:20 p.m.

 


	3. Diagnosis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't done so, please read the archive warnings and tags before continuing. Ye be warned.

**DAY 477**

“Your brother is acting weird. Weirder than usual.” 

Jess’s pronouncement didn’t even have Dean look up from the paperwork he was painstakingly filling out. Running a small business could be a real pain in the ass. “So? What else is new?” he told Jess. 

The waitress dropped an unopened box of Christmas decorations on to the floor and plopped down on the chair across from Dean. She folded her arms across her chest.“I thought we were getting along better, ya know? Like, I finally get over my stupid crush and I think we can be friends and then today, today he won’t even talk to me,” Jess complained. 

“That sucks,” Dean muttered. Was it a 7.50% tax rate that he needed to pay to the State Board of Equalization, or had they raised it again? “Jess, is it still a seven-point-five tax?” he asked her. 

"Really?”  

“What?”

“That's all you have to say?"

"Well, what do you want me to say?” Jess was in friggin grad school and she couldn’t handle a pissy Sam? Not his problem.

“I _want_ advice about your brother,” she snapped.

“Yeah, Sam's a weird dumbass. No, I have no idea why he's giving you the silent treatment,” Dean said to her. He was having a shit day: he’d woken up to an empty coffee tin, he’d found a parking ticket on the windshield of the Impala that morning (the meter maid had actually written _happy holidays_ across the top of it), and he’d forgotten to file the monthly sales tax, which meant that there was a hefty $250 late charge to pay. It was the kind of day where his default course of action would be to grab a bottle and forget everything. But that wasn't an option, not anymore. 

“Well why would he give me the silent treatment?”

“I don’t know. Why don't you just go ask him about it and leave me the fuck alone so I can work." 

"What crawled up your ass and died?" Jess spat out the words, and as she left his office, she flipped him off. 

Great. Perfect. At least he might be able to get some work done now. 

His phone chirped. A text from Cas. _How are you today?_ 11:24 a.m.

Honestly? He'd slept like shit, his feet hurt, and he had a cough that wouldn't go away. Jess was mad at him, Sam wasn't talking to anybody, and everytime he sat down to balance the checkbook, somebody fucking interrupted him mid-calculation. He'd had to start over six times. Six fucking times. 

From Cas: _tonight, try elevating your feet on pillows while you sleep. that should help with the pain._ 11:27 a.m.

Of course Cas would still be a friggin sweetheart even when Dean was acting like a dick. 

From Cas: _[picture attachment]_ 11:28 a.m.

Heh. A cat dressed as a taco. 

From Cas: _would you like to taco bout it?_ 11:28 a.m.

From Cas: _my brother assures me that joke is relevant._ 11:28 a.m.

From Cas: _for what it’s worth I just had an elderly gentleman vomit on my shoes._ 11:29 a.m.

To Cas: _that sucks!_ 11:29 a.m.

From Cas: _they were new. I’m quite disappointed._ 11:30 a.m.

To Cas: _at least it was ur shoes & not ur trenchcoat_ 11:31 a.m.

From Cas: _the man would not have survived to tell the tale_ 11:32 a.m.

From Cas: _speaking of which, I quite enjoyed that pirate film. Can we watch it again?_ 11:33 a.m.

To Cas: _yeah sure_ 11:33 a.m.

From Cas: _I have to work now._ 11:33 a.m.

To Cas: _talk to u later. dont kill anyone who vomits on u_ 11:34 a.m.

From Cas: _seem a saint when most I play the devil_ 11:35 a.m.

To Cas: _?????_ 11:35 a.m.

From Cas: _its Richard III. Shakespeare._ 11:36 a.m.

To Cas: _go work ur distracting me_ 11:36 a.m.

From Cas: _[picture attachment]_ 11:37 a.m.

From Cas: _hope your day gets better_ 11:37 a.m.

The man had sent him a selfie, wearing his trenchcoat, with a red rubber ball in front of his nose, a la Patch Adams. Dean smiled at his phone as he texted back: _go to work u dork._ 11:39 a.m.

Dean was still grinning stupidly at his phone when Sam walked in his office five minutes later. "Hey," his brother said before folding his long body into the couch, curling into the fetal position. 

Big brother instinct on red alert. "What happened?" Dean asked Sam. 

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. Can I just sit here and, uh, do nothing? I need a break from studying."

“Okay,” Dean said. He went back to his paperwork. He really needed to rely more on online banking, because math had never been a talent for him. Although he was tempted to apologize to Jess and ask her to do it for him, he turned on his office radio to the classic rock station and began tapping out strings of numbers into his calculator. He didn’t look at Sam once. If Sammy wanted to talk, he’d talk. 

It took seven minutes for the Sasquatch to crack. 

"It's about Jess," Sam began. "Well, uh, more specifically about me and Jess. I want to ask her on a date but, uh, I don't know how."

Dean was tempted to throw his hands in the air and proclaim, "Hallelujah! Sam has seen the light!" Instinct told him that Sam wouldn't appreciate that, however. Instead he nodded at Sam and asked him to continue. Better to let Sammy spill his guts, so Dean could figure out the nicest way to tell his brother to stop being such a damn scaredy cat and go get the girl. 

Sam folded and unfolded his hands, a sign of nervousness he'd carried around since they were kids. Dean used to tease him that it was Sam's subconscious desire to have someone hold his hand. Sam had always told him to shut up. 

"So, you know Jess better than I do... she probably likes you better too. What should I do? What would she like?" Sam's voice was riddled with uncertainty.

Jess would like Sam to man up and get on with it already. So Dean told his brother to go ask her to dinner. Simple and to-the-point. Jess would appreciate that. 

Sam didn't look convinced, but he was listening. His body leaned forward, and in his brother's eyes was not only a request for help, but also permission. Dean was familiar with the look--having raised Sam, he knew when his brother wanted something--but this time was different. Sam wasn't asking for a ride or to borrow Dean's favorite leather jacket, he was asking permission to date a girl, and that was something Sam had never, ever done before. It occurred to Dean that Jess was the first girl Sam had expressed more than a casual interest in since they moved from Nebraska (if he were being honest with himself, since before he'd gone to rehab). He cleared his throat. "Listen, Sammy, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Why do you want to date Jess?"

Sam's hands stilled and he placed them on his knees, steady and calm. "She makes me laugh," he admitted, "And, I don't know, for the past few months we've been working together a lot. When we're not working, we're both here studying. If I spent that much time with you, I'd kill you. But her...I look forward to working if she's here. It's like my day doesn't make sense if she's not in it, you know?"

Yeah, Dean knew. 

"Then doesn't it make sense to, I don't know, make sure she's a part of your life every day?" said Dean. 

"But what if she says 'no?'" 

Ah. There it was. Ladies and Gentlemen, Dean Winchester presents to you Sam's overwhelming fear of rejection, brought to you by the assholery of one Mr. John Winchester. 

Dean stood and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. He pulled out a crumpled twenty and thrust it into his brother's hands. 

Sam looked at the money as if it were made of human skin. "Why did you give me this?" he asked. 

"I'm paying you $20 to go ask Jess to dinner." 

"Why?" 

"When we were kids, and you were too scared to do something, like climb a tree or say a bad word, I'd offer to give you a dollar, remember?" 

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You’re never going to get Jess unless you get some cajones and _ask her out_.”

"Oh, I get it. Ok. Yeah. I can do this." He stood up and straightened his shirt. "Wish me luck." 

"Break a leg. Oh, and Sammy? She's a great girl. Don't know what she sees in you." 

"Jerk." 

"Bitch." 

He grabbed his phone, shoving his accounting to the side for the moment, and texted Cas. _so guess what Sam's doing_ 12:20 p.m.

He knew Cas was working, so he didn't expect an immediate response. He also didn’t expect Jess to storm into his office, saying, “Ok, your brother literally tripped over himself trying to get away from me. Please tell him to grow up. Oh, and he broke two mugs.”

Oh, he was going to love telling this story to Cas later. “How did he trip?” he asked Jess. 

Jess looked pretty, even when she was miffed. She said, "He kept standing in my way while I was waiting tables, kept saying something about sushi. So I asked him to move, and yeah, he was in such a hurry to get away from me he fracking tripped and knocked the two mugs right out of my hands. Thank god they weren't full of coffee, or I'd be even more pissed." 

Dean bit his bottom lip to keep from laughing. "Please tell me he fell on his face." 

"No," said Jess. "He fell on his ass. Why does that matter?"

The laughter burst out of Dean, an uncontrollable wave of amusement at his brother. Later, when he told Cas about this, the man would furrow his eyebrows and tell him it wasn't nice to laugh at his brother's expense. But damn it all if Sam wouldn't do the same thing if their positions were reversed. Dean continued to laugh until his lungs burned from lack of oxygen, at which point the laughter turned to dry hacks as he fought with his trachea for air. Jess, apparently softened by his respiratory distress, put his head between his knees and told him to breathe; it was another small way that she reminded him of Mary Winchester, who could remain calm in the face of any crisis. When he had regained his breath, he thanked her and squeezed her hand. Her hand was small, delicate, and those were two adjectives he'd never use to describe any part of her personality. 

"Wanna tell me what's so funny?" she asked him. She was smiling, but Dean could see genuine concern in her face, in her voice, in her eyes. 

"Sure. You and Sam are both idiots." Her eyes turned a little darker when she got irritated. Before shecould say a word, he continued, "That wasSam asking you to dinner. A date. His approach needs some work, sure, but he. wants. to. date. you." He made sure to speak each word slowly and over-enunciated, like those asshats at the DMV did for non-English speakers. Like, really, speaking slower wasn't going to make them magically understand a foreign language. Dumb asses. 

"Oh," she said. 

Wait for it.

"OH." Her smile reached her eyes, and Dean kept the memory as one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen, right next to driving Baby through the redwoods. "I, uh, I gotta go." She flew from his office, but came back two minutes later. "So I guess he left," she said,disappointed. 

"You have a phone, he has a phone..."

And the smile was back. "Oh, duh. I'll go call him." 

Five minutes later, his phone chirped. A text. 

From Sammy: _i'm taking Jess for sushi on Saturday. can I borrow your leather_ _jacket?_ 12:33 p.m.

To Sammy: _congrats on the date. and hell no._ 12:34 p.m.

Dean finished his paperwork in record time so he could surprise Cas on his lunchbreak and tell him the whole story. It no longer bothered Dean how much of a chick flick his life had become. 

** DAY 540  **

From Ellen: _Jo tells me you have a young man._ 4:18 p.m.

From Ellen: _I want to meet him._ 4:19 p.m.

To Ellen: _jo’s lying_ 4:48 p.m.

To Ellen: _you’ve already met him_ 4:51 p.m.

** DAY 602  **

"I just need fifteen minutes, dude, and then I'll be ready. Make yourself at home." 

Cas was in his apartment. Not a big deal. He and Sam had plenty of friends over (lie) all the time (never) and they didn't always tell each other about it (another lie). Dean hadn't suggested that Cas come over after work because he knew Sam was out with Jess and would be gone for several hours. He showed Cas how to work the television and disappeared into the bathroom to wash off the gallon of barbecue sauce that the new chef had "accidentally" dropped onhim (Jess insisted the new guy, Michael, was alright, but Dean thought the kid should have "douchebag" branded on his forehead). 

It occurred to Dean, while he was naked in the shower, scrubbing off the scent of barbecue, that it was “towel day.” Meaning that Sam had taken all of the towels out of the bathroom to be washed. Meaning that Dean would have to do the naked-no-towel-sprint from the bathroom to his bedroom across the hall. Not a big deal. Cas had already seen most of him, just not _all_ of him. At once. Okay, so he would ask Cas to bring him a towel. 

It also occurred to Dean that in a chick flick, this would be the moment when Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds discovered their mutual sexual attraction when they collided naked in the hallway. He was going to kill Sam and Jess for making him watch _The Proposal_ (even though, in this situation, he was much more like Ryan Reynolds than Sandra, thank you very much). 

When he'd finished showering, he opened the bathroom door enough so he could peek his head out and yell, "Hey Cas! Um, could you bring me a towel?" 

Cas appeared in front of the door, and the dude was still wearing his trenchcoat, even after Dean had made a point of showing him the coat rack. "Where is your linen closet?" the other man asked. 

Dean pointed down the hall to a cupboard next to Sam's room. "There. Top shelf." Dean found it kind of adorable that Cas had to stand on tiptoes to reach the stack of grey towels. Cas handed him the towel through the gap in the door, and Dean wrapped it around his hips. When he opened the door all the way, Cas was still standing in the hallway. Every hair on Dean's arms stood at attention, magnetized by the dark-haired man's presence. "Um, Cas, personal space?" He laughed, but it was forced, and they both knew it. 

Cas's eyes were glued to where Dean had tucked in the towel right under where his right hipbone jutted out. Dean swallowed. He didn't understand a lot of Cas's quirks, but this? This was a look he understood. He'd known Cas for over a year now, and they had been friends for most of it, a natural progression from strangers to acquaintances to friends to friends who talked/texted every waking hour. If Dean didn't have a running list of reasons why they shouldn't, he'd call this moment the next step, the one where he took one step closer and took Cas's hands in his own and, god, those hands were enough to make him lose his sanity. His hands shook with the desperation to reach out, to touch, to _feel_ like he hadn't for a long time. A damn long time. "Cas," he whispered. He didn't know if he meant it as a warning, an invitation, or a confession. 

His friend's eyes raked over Dean's body. It wasn't smooth and sensuous, the way Jo Harvelle had looked at him right before he kissed her, or the soft and doe-eyed looks his previous girlfriends would throw at him when he would cook them dinner.Castiel's eyes could strip Dean down to his soul, judge the content of it, and leave him wanting more. With anyone else who looked at him like that, Dean would make a snarky comment--a "Like whatyou see?" or "Take a picture, it'lllast longer"--but not with Cas. 

"Dean, I--," started Cas. He cleared his throat. Dean watched the man's Adam's apple bob. Cas was nervous, he realized. Cas was nervous and didn't have an exit strategy from their Mexican standoff of eye-screwing. Dean didn't either. 

Castiel’s hand snaked forward, his fingertips twisting into the top of the towel where it was tucked in, an almost ghostly grazing of the top Dean’s hipbone. “Dean,” the other man whispered. Dean didn’t know what to do, what to say, and then Castiel’s finger traced his hipbone a little more purposefully, his nail lightly scraping Dean’s skin. It would be so easy for him to take that one little step forward, to grip Castiel tight and pull them into one another, to mingle their breaths, their bodies. 

The moment broke when the front door opened. “Dean?” Sam called, “Are you home?”

In the gap between the front door opening and Sam walking into the hallway to find his mostly-naked brother and trenchcoated friend, Dean saw two options: 1. hide in the bathroom or 2. stand there awkwardly until Sam asks who his ‘friend’ is and by then hopefully have an answer. 

Option two won. 

Dean listened to his brother chatter as he moved through the front of the apartment. Apparently Jess wasn’t feeling well and postponed their date and would Dean like to order a pizza and watch the boxing match? “Oh,” said Sam when he saw mostly-naked Dean standing with Cas. Cas’s hand was still tangled in Dean’s towel. 

Dean held onto his towel like it was a life preserver. “Oh hey Sammy.”

“Um, hey,” Sam said. “Uh…who’s this?”

“Yes, introduce us, Dean,” Cas said. Was that a smirk that Cas was trying to hide?

“Cas, this is Sam, my brother,” Dean said, “Sam, this is Cas, my...my boyfriend.” 

Cas did that perfect eyebrow arch thing. “Nice to meet you, Sam. Dean has done little else but speak of you,” he said. He untwisted his hand from Dean’s towel, extended it to his brother.

Sam’s eyes widened as he watched the movement of Cas’s hand. It reminded Dean of a toad. He shook Cas's hand anyway.

“I wish I could say Dean talked about you,” said Sam after he had recovered his composure. “Tell me, do you like macchiatos?” He shot Dean a look that said very clearly, “I know what you’ve been up to, you sneaky sonuvabitch.”

Fuck it, Dean was gonna cut and run. “I’m gonna go get dressed,” he informed the two of them. 

“Are you sure you need to?” asked Sam. He winked at Cas, and yeah, it was time for Sam to go. Dean tapped the side of his nose twice, which was Winchester code for “Go away because I’m going to get some.” 

“I think I’m gonna take Jess some soup. Um, yeah. I’ll be back in a few hours…yeah. At least three hours.” 

He went around his brother and Cas and went to his room to get dressed. He hoped that when he reemerged either the last five minutes would never have happened or that the floor would swallow him. 

His phone chirped. A text from Sam. 

From Sammy: _ur not having some i-just-came-out freak out r u?_ 6:27 p.m.

To Sammy: _no_ 6:28 p.m.

From Sammy: _i cant believe you didnt tell me_ 6:29 p.m.

From Sammy: _i told you about jess_ 6:31 p.m.

From Sammy: _i knew the macchiatos weren’t for you_ 6:32 p.m.

From Sammy: _does jess know?_ 6:33 p.m.

From Sammy: _does ellen know?_ 6:34 p.m.

From Sammy: _dean?_ 6:35 p.m.

From Sammy: _ur freaking out aren’t u_ 6:36 p.m.

From Sammy: _he seems nice_ 6:37 p.m.

Dean turned off his phone. 

He came out of his room, fully dressed, and found Cas sitting on the sofa. Sam was long gone. Cas had finally taken off his coat and draped it over an armrest. Dean knew it meant that Cas was comfortable in his home. He sat next to Cas, too close perhaps, and their knees were touching. He knew what question Cas was going to ask, and he wasn’t sure he had the answer his friend wanted to hear. 

"Dean, why did you lie to your brother?" asked Cas.

There it was, the question of the year. 

"I am not your boyfriend,” Cas continued. “I am...was your physician, although I do consider us to be friends." Fuck, those blue eyes were intense when his friend was being all earnest and shit. 

Dean refused to look at Cas. He just _couldn't._ Not with those eyes. If he looked, he wouldn’t say what he needed to, and Cas deserved the truth. "Sam is my life," Dean said, "He has been since the day he was born. It's been just me and him for so long--don't look at me like _that--_ I have to say this." Dean drew in a deep breath and imagined the extra oxygen gave him more confidence to say what he knew needed to be said. Why did he lie? “How can I tell Sam,” he said, “Who I've spent my life looking after, that soon I won't be around anymore?” 

“You can say it, Dean,” Cas said. “It’s alright.”

No, it really wasn’t.  

“How do I tell him that I'm friggin dying?" Saying it aloud made it real, made the countdown start in earnest. If Dean cried a little then, Cas didn't remark on it. 

"You're trying to protect him," Cas said.

"I guess," said Dean. He smiled, but they both knew it was empty. Most of his smiles were nowadays. "Mostly I don't want him to smother me. I want to enjoy my time with him, you know? I don't want him to worry. I will tell him, just not yet."

"I understand," said Cas. "I can't say I wouldn't do the same, if it were me. " 

They sat in silence for a long time, until Dean realized he had one more confession to make. It was time to take that step. It’s not like he had a lot left to lose. "It wasn't all a lie," he said. 

For a minute, he didn't think Cas had heard him. 

"You know we shouldn't. There are rules. There are regulations." 

Dean laughed, for real this time. "I don't have time to care about that," he said, but what he meant was that if he did have time, he wouldn't be sitting there with Cas. It was horrible timing, he knew, and it was so fucking ironic. God, so fucking ironic! He was running out of time and yet whenever he was with Cas it felt like he should have all the time in the world. 

Nicholas Sparks could make millions off the chick flick moments that had become Dean’s life. Here he was, sitting with the man his heart beat for, and that man was the one who told him that soon his heart wouldn't beat at all. He took Castiel's hand then, and pressed it between his own. The warmth of Castiel's fingers spread throughout him, warming him from the inside out, thawing out parts of him that Dean hadn't known existed. "I don't give a damn about the rules. Rules were made to be broken anyway." Then he kissed Cas. 

When they pulled apart, minutes--or was it decades?--later, Cas said, “Your timing is terrible.”

“I know.” 

Cas kissed him again, and for a while, Dean forgot he was dying. 

** DAY 125 _-The First Time Dean Met Cas_ **

There were few things in life that Dean hated more than doctors' offices (at the moment, only JarJar Binks came to mind). The plastic waiting room chairs numbed his ass, the daytime television was boring as shit (Dr. Phil wasn't a real doctor anyway), and the receptionist glared at him every time he pulled out his cellphone to play Plants v. Zombies. The past few weeks had been a merry-go-round of doctor's appointments and lying to Sam about where he really was. Today, he'd told Sam he was getting a haircut; his brother looked physically ill as Dean described how the barber typically used the clippers on his hair. 

This was his fourth appointment in as many weeks, and the third doctor. The first doctor had taken one look at his medical history and sent him off to a specialist; the specialist had sent him for an interview with a surgeon. Now he was here, in the clinic of Dr. Castiel Novak (weird name), M.D. letting his ass numb while he waited for the dick in the white coat to make time for him. There was a woman sitting across from him, her skin pale and sallow; she reminded him of the light bulb in his office, dimming every minute. 

"Mr. Winchester?"

Dean stood. The nurse beckoned for him to follow her and she took his vitals--weight, blood pressure, all that jazz--and left him alone in an examination room. There were puppies on the wallpaper. Probably to keep patients like him from panicking and bolting. There was a stack of magazines in the corner of the room, all of them frayed at the edges from over-reading. Dean was tempted to pick up Soap Opera Digest; he'd heard that Dr. Sexy had a new love interest, but before he could, the exam room door opened and in walked the doctor. 

If Dean had seen Dr. Novak on the street, he would have walked right by the man without a second glance. The doctor was attractive, sure, but in that weird nerdy way that people like Sam usually went for. He was muscular but lean, tall but not towering, and his lips were a bit too small and the corners of his eyes did this weird crinkly thing. When he looked the doctor in the eye for the first time, the intense blue hit Dean like a punch to the gut, and Dean amended his mental list of things that surprised him: #1. Dr. Novak's eyes and how he never wanted to look away from them. 

“Good afternoon, Mr. Winchester, I am Dr. Novak. How are you today?” the doctor said. The doctor’s voice, which Dean had expected to be crisp and sharp, was low, gravelly, and sounded like a mixture of a purr and a growl. 

Dean really needed to get out more.

“I’m fine, Doc. Just ready to get the all-clear and go back to work.” 

"What is it that you do?"

"I own a restaurant.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s called Dive Burger. Gets pretty busy around lunchtime, so if you’ll just write me a scrip or whatever then I’ll be good to go,” Dean said. 

Dr. Novak frowned. “I’m sorry, Mr. Winchester,” he said, “But this may take quite some time.”

Well, that wasn’t good. 

The doctor sat across from Dean. He rolled his office chair so close that their knees almost touched. “Mr. Winchester,” he began.

“Call me Dean.”

“Alright, Dean, I think you will appreciate honesty in this, so here it is: there is no way I can help you,” Dr. Novak said. The doctor’s voice wasn’t a purr any longer, a distinct distress present in his voice as he pronounced Dean’s death sentence. 

When Dean didn’t respond, the doctor continued. “You were referred here by Dr. August, because she hoped that I would be able to help you. In most circumstances, your condition is manageable. Rheumatic heart disease is rare, very rare in the United States, in fact, and frankly I’m quite puzzled as to how your situation was allowed to progress this far.” 

Both Dean and Dr. Novak knew how the disease had wormed into his heart, it said so in his medical file, which Dean had snuck a look at when Dr. August wasn’t paying attention. It read, “untreated rheumatic fever due to probable childhood neglect progressed to rheumatic heart disease and mitral stenosis. Suspect presence of pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure. Refer to Dr. Novak for cardiothoracic consult.” Dean had memorized the words and had them translated into something simpler for the Winchester to understand: he was sick because his father had been a royal fuck-up of a parent.

“What do you know about rheumatic heart disease?” the doctor asked him. 

Dr. August had been very helpful on that subject. Dean knew so much on the condition that he could write his own damn Wikipedia article. As he prattled off what he knew about the progression of rheumatic fever to rheumatic heart disease, Dr. Novak maintained a look of complete interest, even though Dean knew that the doctor had heard all this information a million times before. When Dean had finished his lengthy explanation, the doctor said, "Dean, you already have a firm understanding of your condition, but before I discuss where we go from here, I must ask you if you have someone you'd like here with you. It will not be an easy conversation, and some patients feel the need for support from a family member or a spouse. Do you have someone I can call for you?" 

Dean shook his head. "Nope, no one." He wasn'tgoing to bother Sam with this, not while he was studying for his semester exams.

“Are you sure?” The doctor’s face was a carefully measured expression of neutrality, but his eyes spoke an ocean of concern for his patient. 

“Yeah, doc. Let’s just do this.”

Dr. Novak pulled out a notepad and began drawing on it. The doctor's pen moved in quick, steady, practiced strokes; the movement was obviously comfortable to the man. His hands were graceful, but from their closeness Dean could see that the fine lines on the back of the doctor's hands were slightly cracked--probably from washing his hands so much as a surgeon. "Do you know what this is?" Dr. Novak asked him, interrupting Dean's daze. 

Dean peered at the paper. "That looks like a fuel pump," he replied. It didn't just look like a fuel pump--Dean had seen less accurate images in the mechanics and engineering magazines he subscribed to monthly.

The doctor nodded. "The heart is similar to a fuel pump in that they move and pressurize a vital fluid, a sort of hydraulic pump. But the heart is a closed loop system, unlike a fuel pump, and it relies on the fluid it pumps for fuel and oxygen." The doctor quickly sketched a crude rendering of the human heart next to the fuel pump, and showed Dean where the pumps, valves, and chambers were located in each. It made a whole lot more sense than the shpeels the last two doctors had given, or that boring Web MD article. "Now can you tell me how you know when your fuel pump needs replacing in your car?" the doctor asked.

"Your engine will sputter or the car will lose power when accelerating," Dean replied.

Dr. Novak nodded but didn't say anything else. 

"You're telling me my heart is bad, aren't you, doc?" The question didn't really need to be answered, now that Dean was remembering all the times his heart raced from walking up one flight of stairs, or the days when he could hardly breathe when he went for his morning jog, or the days when he felt exhausted as soon as he woke up. Dr. Novak was confirming what Dean already knew. 

"Because your condition has progressed so far without treatment, you are experiencing right heart failure and pulmonary hypertension," the doctor explained.

Right heart failure. Pulmonary hypertension. Dr. August had mentioned those to him, had said that they were possibilities, had said things like “increased pressure” and “thickened lung vessels” and “decreased oxygenation of the blood flow.” He wished he had paid more attention to the meanings behind her words. “Can you just, you know, replace it?” Dean asked. He gestured to his chest, indicating his heart. 

The doctor's eyes softened. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Winchester--Dean--but surgery is no longer an option. The purpose of it would be to prevent right heart failure, and we are well past that stage. The pulmonary hypertension prevents the likelihood of a successful heart transplant, and even so, your medical history would put you at the bottom of the donor list." 

So basically Dean's alcoholism was gonna kill him after all. Sam was right.

"So, what, my heart is just shutting down?" 

The doctor looked very distressed as he said, "To put it simply, yes." 

They were silent for a long while after that, and Dean was grateful for the time to collect his thoughts. It didn't seem quite real, that he would be dying so young. Dying was for people who had lived and done everything they wanted to do, not for Dean, who had never even seen the redwood forest or Las Vegas. When the Winchester finally spoke again, he asked, "How long?"

How long until he had to tell Sam? How long until the pain became so constant that he wished the process would speed up? How long until he couldn't take care of himself? How long?

"Two to five years. Each case is different." The words should have sounded stoic and rehearsed, but the gravel of the doctor's voice rattled, and it was clear to Dean that he wasn't the only one in the room who wished he could buck up and run. But where could he run to? He couldn't tell Sam, not yet, not if he couldn't even admit it to himself. And god, the look on Sam's face when he found out just might kill Dean then and there. No, there would be no telling Sam. Not yet, not until he had to. He didn't know what to say. 

What was he supposed to do in a situation like this? Was he supposed to cry? Was he supposed to blame a god he didn't believe existed or pray for a miracle? Was he supposed to feel this numb about the whole thing? Instead he asked, "How did you know I'd understand the fuel pump diagram?" 

The doctor smiled, and damn it all if the phrase "smile that could light up a room" didn't flash through Dean's mind. "You have motor oil on your left sleeve," the doctor said, "and my oldest brother was very into mechanical engineering. I was his unwilling helpmate for many projects, but the similarities between engineering and medicine are uncanny at times. It is one of the many reasons I became a doctor.”

“Do you ever regret it?” Dean asked. Okay, so the question was kind of personal, but the man knew mechanics and could draw an accurate rendering of a fuel pump from memory and really, Dean just did not want to think about the depressing dull thuds resounding through his chest. 

“No,” said Dr. Novak, “I don’t regret trying to make a difference or trying to save people.”

Dean snorted. 

Dr. Novak pulled out a prescription pad and scribbled something down. "Your treatment will remain with Dr. August, since she is best qualified to help manage your symptoms at this juncture," he said as he ripped the paper from the pad. He handed it to Dean. On it was scribbled a phone number. "Should you ever need to talk to someone," he said. "I may not be able to help you in a operating room, but I can listen, should you want me to." He stood to leave the exam room, tucking Dean’s file under his arm. He was almost out the door when he turned around. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved,” said the doctor, “But I think I deserve to try.”

That night, Dean couldn’t sleep. He sent a text message to the doctor: _thank you dr novak._ 12:04 a.m. And then another text almost immediately following: _this is dean winchester_ 12:04 a.m.

The doctor responded almost instantly. _Call me Castiel._ 12:05 a.m.

Dean entered the number into his phone and saved it under the name "Cas." 

** DAY 670  **

From Sammy: _i bought fireworks!_ 4:29 p.m.

From Sammy: _so ready for the 4th of july bbq!_ 4:31 p.m.

To Sammy: _yeah ur cooking this year_ 4:33 p.m.

From Sammy: _but u always cook_ 4:34 p.m.

From Sammy: _u dont even let me touch the grill_ 4:34 p.m.

To Sammy: _well now that ur a real boy with a real gf, its time u learned to cook_ _like a man_ 4:38 p.m.

To Sammy: _dont worry ill teach u_ 4:39 p.m.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so, so sorry.


	4. Flat Lining

** DAY 130 _\--The Second Time Dean Met Cas_ **

It was raining buckets by the time Dean noticed the trenchcoated man standing outside in the diner’s parking lot. It was early, the diner was an hour away from opening, but there was always the occasional hungover Stanford student who came jonesing for chili cheese fries. He decided that he was feeling charitable and went to grab the front door keys. He unlocked the door and called out to the guy, “Hey, buddy, wanna come inside?”

The man hesitated for a minute before he dashed inside, his coat pulled up over his head, an awkward makeshift umbrella. He let the coat drop onto his shoulders and flicked the water out his hair with one hand. When the man turned around, Dean sucked in a breath, because those blue eyes packed just as much of a punch as they had the first time Dean saw them. “Cas?” he asked.

The man cocked his head, his right ear almost reaching his shoulder. “Cas?”

“Oh, uh, I meant Castiel,” Dean amended. “What are you doing here?”

“I recalled that you owned a restaurant and I thought I might partake in a meal here before I’m due for surgery,” Castiel said. “I apologize. I did not realize that your business doesn’t open until seven. Would you like me to return in an hour?”

“Nah,” replied Dean. “You’re here now. And it’s raining.”

“Thank you,” said Castiel.

The two men stood there awkwardly, until Dean realized that Cas-- _Castiel--_ was waiting for Dean to offer him a place to sit. “Oh, uh, sit wherever you want,” Dean said. “Let me grab you a menu.” 

Castiel moved to the counter, close to where Sam usually sat, and took off his trenchcoat and draped it over one of the barstools. Dean grabbed a menu, and handed it to the doctor. “Can I get you a coffee?” he asked. “I just brewed a pot.”

“Do you have an espresso machine?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Coffee is fine.”

Dean grabbed the pot and poured the man a mug. He set creamer and sugar on the counter in front of Castiel. “What else can I get for ya?” Dean asked. 

“You do not have to serve me, Dean.”

Dean gestured to the dining room at large. “Kinda my job, dude.” Castiel didn’t open the menu. “I think I’m going to make some pancakes. Would you like some?”

“That would be nice.”

Dean headed back toward the kitchen. “Um, Dean?” Castiel called after him. 

“Yeah?”

“Would you mind if I watched?” Castiel asked.

Dean could think of at least six inappropriate things to say in response, but instead he said, “Sure.” The doctor followed Dean back to the kitchen, and maybe it was because Dean only cooked at work nowadays, or maybe it was because Dean felt that watching someone cook was like watching them have sex--you could be quick and efficient or slow and purposeful--but Dean felt nervous about letting the surgeon watch him cook, even if it was only pancakes. He grabbed his apron--a hideous pastel pink creation that said “Keep calm and kiss the cook”--and wrapped it around his waist. Castiel leaned up against a long metal countertop as Dean grabbed the flour and began to mix it in with baking powder and sugar. As he prepared the batter, he asked Castiel what had brought him to his diner so early in the day. 

“After our conversation the other day,” said Castiel, “I found myself concerned for you. It seemed like you had no one to talk to about your condition?” The doctor phrased the last part as a question, one that Dean felt obligated to answer. 

“It’s just me and my brother, has been for a long time. He’s in law school, and I just don’t know how to break it to him, you know?” 

“There is no one else?”

“Not anyone in California.”

“What about whoever gave you that apron?” Castiel gestured to the pink fabric clinging to Dean’s hips.

“This? Oh it was a gag gift from one of my employees.”

Dean turned on the grill, and finished mixing the batter. He carefully ladled generous helpings of it onto the hot grill, and watched the batter bubble up from the heat. 

“Do you regret becoming a cook?” Castiel asked him. 

The question flew in from left field and smacked Dean in the face. “Uh, no?”

“You asked me the other day if I regretted my decision to become a doctor, and I wondered if perhaps it stemmed from a regret of your own,” Castiel continued, “I am sorry if the question was too personal.”

Dean didn’t speak for a long while after that. He flipped the pancakes with a spatula. They were a perfect golden brown, just the way that Sammy liked them. He’d have to teach Sammy how to make them. There was still plenty of time to do that, right?

"I was going to save the world, you know,” Dean said, breaking the awkward silence that been filling the space between them. “I was going to join the Marines like my dad, maybe. Or cure cancer. Or feed kids in Africa.” Dean knew he shouldn't be laying this crap on the doctor, but he found himself saying the words anyway.“But now all I am is a high school dropout who is good at flipping burgers." To prove his point, he flipped the pancakes onto two waiting plates. He handed one plate to Castiel. He pulled out the butter and syrup, and they both stood there, leaning against the kitchen counters of Dive Burger, as if they’d been eating breakfast together their entire lives. It was the same way he ate with Sammy, Dean realized, not at a table, but standing casually with a plate in one hand and a fork in the other. 

“We have no idea the effect we have on others' lives,” Castiel said between bites.“You are more important than you think you are."

Dean shrugged. "Easy for you to say. You save lives everyday."

Castiel moved so he could look Dean straight in the eyes. "Don't presume that I am an altruist," he said, "And perhaps you don't need to save the entire world. Perhaps you just need to save one person. It is not the wings that make an angel, after all." 

Dean didn't have anything to say to that. 

Castiel finished eating quickly. He was due at the hospital to prep for surgery in a little over half an hour, he said. He tried to pay Dean for breakfast but Dean told him to put his money away; the diner wasn’t open yet so he didn’t feel it was right to charge him. Dean followed him out to the parking lot. It had stopped raining for the moment, and any minute Jess was due to arrive to help him with the breakfast shift. Castiel bid Dean goodbye, saying, “I meant it when I said that you could talk to me. And if you don’t, then you can expect me here once a week for more breakfast. It was delicious.”

“You follow up like this with all your patients?” Dean asked. 

“No,” Castiel said. He got into his car and drove away. 

To Cas: _i know a good bakery that has macchiatos_ 9:29 a.m.

** DAY 730  **

“Dean? Are you sure you feel up to this?”

It had been four months since Dean had first kissed Cas. He wasn’t sure if it felt more like four years or four seconds. Some days, the good ones which were filled with days at the beach and long, lazy kisses, went by in a daze. Others, like this one, made Dean feel like a snail crawling through a line of salt. It wasgetting more difficult not to tell Sam the real reason why he wouldn't play basketball or why Jess pretty much managed the diner most of the week. For the past few months, he had been letting Sam think that he was preoccupied with his relationship with Cas (which was partly the truth) but now, Sam was demanding double dates and group outings. So far Dean had been able to use Cas's hospital schedule as a reason not to go mountain climbing, zip lining, or whatever activity Sam had deemed as a "must-do." 

But dinner at a local Italian restaurant? Not so easily escaped. 

"I'll be fine, Cas. We're just gonna sit and eat, right? I can handle that." He smiled at his...well, whatever Cas was to him, but he knew the smile didn't reach his eyes. 

Cas didn't look like he believed Dean, but he helped Dean put on his shoes anyway. Dean rarely wore shoes anymore. Cas told him that the swelling was to be expected because of the right heart failure. Dean liked to joke that his elephant feet kept him from running away from commitment. Cas didn't find it funny. 

When they reached the restaurant, they walked in to find Sam and Jess in the middle of an argument. As they approached the table, Dean could tell that his brother was trying hard not to get up and leave, as was his habit when he was fighting with anyone except Dean, another leftover from the crappy parenting of John Winchester. Sam glanced at Dean when they got to the table, and he shrugged an apology. 

Jessica Moore was unstoppable when she was pissed off. 

“I don’t _need_ your help,” Jessica was saying. “I can take care of myself.” Her eyes were blazing with anger, and Dean fought the urge to raise his hands and back away slowly. 

“I’m not saying you can’t take care of yourself. I’m just saying you shouldn’t have to.” Sam’s voice betrayed his frustration when it reached a slightly higher pitch. 

The restaurant was crowded and people were beginning to stare. While it didn’t faze Jess or his brother, Dean could tell that the extra attention made Cas uncomfortable. He grabbed Cas’s hand and squeezed it. “Hey, uh, Sam, maybe you two should, uh, take it outside and talk there?” said Dean. 

Cas looked at him like he’d cured cancer or something. 

Jess, however, did not appreciate Dean’s intervention. “This is none of your business, Dean,” she spat, “Although I can probably thank you for my boyfriend’s male chauvinism, so hey, why don’t you step in and tell me what women can and can’t do?” She stood up, muttered something about needing a drink,and headed for the bar. 

Sam cradled his head in his hands, his elbows resting on the white linen tablecloth. This was Sam’s first big fight with Jess, and Dean could read defeat on every line of his brother’s face. “Hey, Cas, give us a minute, would ya?” Cas nodded and followed Jess to the bar. 

Dean slid into the chair next to Sam. He held back a wince when his left foot hit the leg of the table. The pulmonary whatsitcalled was really kicking his ass today. Thankfully, Sam had been too preoccupied with Jess to really pay much attention to Dean’s now visibly declining health. The day was coming when Sam would notice: when he’d figure out that Dean’s weight gain wasn’t from too much good food, when he’d notice that Dean wasn’t always “in the middle of things” when he answered the phone breathless, when he’d understand the real reason why he always asked Sam to lift and carry things had nothing to do with laziness. The impending moment lingered on the borders of Dean’s daily life, like the iceberg that had sunk the Titanic. Like the captain of the Titanic, Dean carried on, full speed ahead. “So,” he said to Sam. “That was awkward.”

Sam huffed. “Ya think?”

“Trouble in paradise?”

Sam nodded. Dean motioned for the waiter and ordered a helping of extra cheesy garlic bread. There were very few things that extra carbs couldn’t fix. While they waited for their appetizer, Sam told him about some a-hole that had been bothering Jess in her Tuesday night Contemporary Economic Policy class. Apparently the douche had taken to stalking Jess on Facebook and sending her “suggestive” messages (Dean took “suggestive” to mean naked photos). “I told her that I wanted to tell the guy to back off,” Sam said, “But Jess told me she could take care of it. I don’t know this guy, what if he’s like a seriously crazy stalker? It could be dangerous. I want him to know that Jess has someone watching out for her.” 

Dean pitied any idiot that would try to stalk Jessica Moore, who held a black belt in jiu jitsu. 

“Jess is her own person, I know that, but isn’t it like my job to protect her?” Sam continued. “Don’t I have to look out for her?”

Perhaps clarity came with age, or perhaps this disease was affecting more than his heart, but Dean looked at his brother and saw a version of himself in Sam’s words. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that Dean had been a role model for Sam, since he had never felt like one, but sometimes the mistakes Dean had made with Sam leapt out of the woodwork and bit him in the ass. Like now. “Sammy,” he said, “It’s not your ‘job’ to protect Jess. Your relationship with Jess, it isn’t a job at all.” Sam tried to speak but Dean continued, “I know I’m the last person to be giving you advice for this shit, but trust me, you gotta let Jess decide how she wants to handle this. You’re not her parent or her bodyguard. You’re like her backup, okay? You two are a team and you gotta just support what she wants.”

“But--”

 “No, no buts. If she wants you to beat the shit out of this guy, do it. If she wants you to hold her Gatorade while she beats the shit out of the guy, you do that. She’s a smart girl and she isn’t going to put herself in a dangerous situation, and you have to trust her.” While Sam stewed over Dean’s words, Dean looked over at the bar and saw Cas with Jess, saw the way that Cas was talking to his brother’s girlfriend. Even from a distance, he knew by Castiel’s hand gestures that he was using the voice he used with patients, that he had used with Dean the first time they met. There was no better person to calm Jess, and yeah, he and Cas made a pretty friggin awesome team. He pulled out his phone and texted Cas from under the table. _hows it going over there?_ 7:47 p.m.

From Cas: _we’re bonding over a mutual love of stupid men w/last name_ _Winchester._ 7:48 p.m.

So Jess had taken Cas’s phone. Great. He offered a weak wave at Jess, who glared at him. Cas waved back, seemingly immune to Jess’s bad mood. 

Sam followed Dean’s gaze to Jess and Cas. “He’s good for you,” Sam said. 

Chick flick moment approaching. “He’s a good man,” Dean replied. “I’m not sure I deserve him.” He didn’t have enough time to care about being selfish, that Cas was way better than he deserved. The day he kissed Cas, he’d thrown all those thoughts out the window. He knew that, realistically, Cas would find someone else, someone better, after he...well, Dean didn’t need to think about that. When he did, it felt too much like he’d died already. 

 “You do deserve him,” Sam told him, “And Castiel knows it.”

Dean fidgeted in his chair, not liking the direction of the conversation. They were supposed to be talking about Sam, damn it. “Yeah, well, you deserve Jess,” he redirected the conversation, “Now if you like it, you should really put a ring on it.” 

Sam rolled his eyes. “We haven’t even been together a year yet. Isn’t it too soon?” He gave a small bitchface, which Dean took to mean “I’m putting up a fight but secretly I know you’re right.”

Dean secretly knew he was right too. He’d caught Sam looking at engagement rings three times in the past few months (Dean may or may not have stumbled across Sam’s secret Pinterest account and been shocked to discover a pinboard devoted to plaid in addition to a wedding pinboard. He kinda hoped Sam would combine the two, and had sent Sam a pin from his own secret pinterest account of a wedding where the bride and groom wore antlers.) 

“I’m just saying, if you love her--which it’s obvious you do--and she loves you--which she has for years--why wait?” He looked at Cas again, at the way his lover’s eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled and he repeated, “Why wait, Sam?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I really don’t.” He stood up, his long legs knocking the table. Damn Sasquatch was such a klutz sometimes. “I’m gonna go talk to Jess.”

Sam moved away. The waiter brought the extra-cheesy garlic bread right after, and Dean ate the entire serving by himself and didn’t regret a single bite. 

** DAY 745  **

From Ellen: _tell me the truth, have you tried?_ 6:03 p.m.

To Ellen: _cas says theres nothing else we can do_ 6:04 p.m.

To Ellen: _he’s tried everything_ 6:07 p.m.

To Ellen: _even prayer_ 6:08 p.m.

From Ellen: _prayers dont always work the way you mean them to, hon_ 6:09  p.m.

** DAY 777  **

It had seemed like a good idea to have a stay-in movie night with Cas, until he realized that Cas normally watched documentaries and Terrence Malick films when Dean wasn’t around to pick the movie. In disbelief, he had texted his brother: _would u believe Cas hasnt seen enter the dragon?_ 8:28 pm. 

To which Sam had replied: _u can’t watch that w/out me. we’ll be there in 20._ 8:30 p.m.

Dean didn’t want to know why Sam knew where Cas lived. He suspected secret yoga liaisons, but didn’t yet have proof to confirm his suspicions. 

“So I guess Sam and Jess are going to come watch the movie with us.”

Cas didn’t say anything. 

“ _Enter the Dragon_ is a culturally significant film, Cas. Trust me.” 

Cas poured popcorn into a pan. It was one of Dean’s favorite things about the other man, that he made popcorn the old-fashioned way. Whereas most people just bought crappy microwaveable popcorn with enough butter on it to cause a heart attack, Cas approached popcorn-making the way he did everything: carefully and with intent. “Hey,” Dean said, “We can watch something else. We don’t have to watch this just because I want to, even if it is the best action film ever made.”

Cas continued popping popcorn in silence. He could tell Cas didn’t really want to watch the film, but would because Dean wanted to. “I just don’t understand how violence for the sake of violence can be ‘culturally significant,’” Cas explained. “Violence is not entertainment. It is not amusing or necessary. Violence is the perversion of gentleness.” He shook the popcorn, rather violently, Dean noted. 

Sometimes having a conversation with Castiel was like navigating a minefield. He would take a step and hope he didn’t get blown up. “Bruce Lee wasn’t about violence,” Dean argued, “His kung fu was inspired by philosophy. It’s like watching fucking poetry in action. Just trust me, okay? If you hate it, we’ll watch a documentary on the Dust Bowl or whatever.”

Cas still didn’t look happy, but he seemed to be appeased. He lightly salted the popcorn and separated some into a smaller bowl for himself. He poured lemon juice all over his popcorn, which Dean found disgusting but Cas assured him that it was delicious. 

“Cas, why does it bother you so much?”

Cas took his time answering. “As a med student, I saw some horrible things,” he said. “Gunshot wounds, knife wounds, abused infants. The human race has such capacity for hatred and horror, and yet we celebrate it. Why?” 

“Cas...did something happen at work today?”

Castiel stilled. “Yes,” he replied, “A little girl...she didn’t make it.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Cas shook his head. Dean took the bowl of popcorn out of Castiel’s hands and set it down on the kitchen counter. “Hey,” he said, slipping his fingers through Cas’s belt loops and pulling his lover close to him. He kissed Cas gently. “It’s okay,” he murmured against his lover’s lips. Castiel relaxed into Dean’s embrace, and they pretended for a while that it was just as Dean had said, that it was all okay. 

Cas remained quiet when Sam and Jess arrived, and stayed that way throughout most of the movie. Halfway through, while watching someone get beaten to death with a prosthetic hand (so maybe Cas had a point about the violence), Dean’s ankles began to throb. The first time it had happened, almost two years earlier now, the pressure in his legs had been so intense that Dean had been tempted to stab his leg with a butter knife to relieve the tension. Now, it happened often enough that Dean would just shift in his seat or stand up to change the blood flow to his lower limbs. He began to slowly lift his legs, one after the other, hoping that the change in position would help with the pain. It didn’t. 

Cas must have noticed his uncomfortable shifting, because he motioned for Dean to put his legs in Cas’s lap. He grabbed Dean’s hand and pressed a kiss to the palm. Sam snickered, and Jess may have “awwwwed” a little bit, but they carried on watching Bruce Lee kick ass, oblivious to right heart failure or edema or the finite number of heartbeats Dean had left. And that? That was a feeling worse than the slow death of Dean’s heart. 

Holy shit, he was dying. He was really fucking dying. This might be the last time he watched a Bruce Lee film or the last time he ate popcorn or the last time he had Sam laugh at him for secretly enjoying the chick flick moments. Suddenly he wasn’t as okay with his demise as he thought he had been. He felt it in the pulse of every heartbeat. 

Gagunk. 

Dy-ing. 

Gagunk. 

Dy-ing. 

Gagunk. 

No Ellen.

Gagunk.

No Jo.

Gagunk.

No Jess.

 Gagunk.

No Sam. 

Gagunk. 

No Cas.

He knew that the faster his heart beat, the closer it brought him to the time when it wouldn’t anymore, and no, no, no. No. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fucking fair. He needed more time with them. More time. More. 

He couldn’t breathe. His lungs burned from lack of oxygen, and the more he tried to suck in air, the more it burned. It had been a long time since he had prayed, but that didn’t stop him from mentally screaming _dearGodpleasenotyetnotyetpleaseitstoosoon._

He felt Cas’s worried hands cover his mouth and one nostril, forcing him to slow his breathing. He heard Sam’s concerned voice, and Jess’s, and he weakly gave them a thumbs up. He wasn’t about to die during his favorite Bruce Lee movie. 

It took several minutes, but eventually his breathing returned to normal. Cas alternated which nostril Dean breathed through, and Cas’s hands were a life preserver, pulling Dean to safer waters. “I’m fine,” he croaked when he had regained enough breath. “I must have dozed off and had a nightmare.” He smiled weakly. “I’m fine, I promise.”

No one believed him, but Cas, being the angel that he was, assured the other couple that Dean would be fine, that hyperventilation wasn’t uncommon, that he simply needed to rest in a stress-free environment. “Perhaps you should go and we can finish the movie another time,” Cas suggested, “I can keep an eye on Dean tonight. I will call you if anything happens.” 

Sam didn’t like that idea, but Jess saw the reason of it. “Cas is right,” she said as she pulled Sam toward the door. “He is a doctor, after all.” 

When they had gone, and Castiel’s house was silent with uncertainty, Dean laid all the way back into the couch and stretched out as much as possible into the suede cushions. He breathed deeply and loudly because he could. He loved Cas’s sofa, loved the way the soft suede felt against his skin, like a million tiny fingertips were brushing against him all at once. Cas sat next to him, Dean’s feet in his lap. He rubbed Dean’s calves, his hands floating over Dean’s swollen skin. Dean closed his eyes and pretended that he and Cas were on a beach somewhere warm, and that rheumatic heart disease didn’t exist. “Mmmmm. That feels nice,” Dean commented. 

“Would you like to finish the film?”

Dean cracked one eye open. “I thought you got rid of Sam and Jess so we didn’t have to finish it,” he joked. 

Cas frowned, and Dean read it as “I can’t believe you’d think I’d do that. You were having a medical emergency and I responded like a professional.” 

“I’m kidding, Cas.”

Cas continued to rub Dean’s calves. Dean could tell that he wanted to ask about the hyperventilation and what had caused it. Sam would ask, but Cas? Cas would sit there, rubbing Dean’s calves, until Dean felt ready to talk about it. If he ever felt ready to talk about it. So they didn’t talk about it, because there were some things that weren’t ready to be said. Things that sounded too much like goodbye.

Dean felt like he was standing in a bus depot, ticket in hand, but with no clue which bus to board. Platform 1: the bus to Telling Sam the Truth. Platform 2: the bus to Exploring His Feelings About Death. Platform 3: the bus to Pretending It Isn’t Happening. 

And then there was Cas, with his trenchcoat and his blue eyes and his perfect hands, who would board whichever bus that Dean chose. There were things Dean wanted to say to Cas, things that sounded a lot like “I love you.” But words were cheap, Dean knew, and neither Dean nor Cas needed to say them. 

“Cas, please,” Dean whispered. 

And Cas, because he was _Cas_ , knew what Dean was asking, even when Dean couldn’t form the words. He moved so he was next to Dean, their noses touching. “Cas, _please.”_ He kissed Dean to silence. His hands, his perfect hands, cradled Dean’s face, and Dean could not remember the last time he was touched so gently. Perhaps it had been Mary Winchester’s final embrace, or the first time he held Sam as a baby in his arms. Unbidden, tears slipped down Dean’s face, and Cas kissed each one away, his lips soft and fluttering like a butterfly’s wing. 

“Cas,” Dean whispered again. He said the name as if it were the only word worth saying. Perhaps it was. 

Cas captured Dean’s lips with his, more forceful than gentle now. The kiss contained all the things that they couldn’t say, things that sounded a lot like “I don’t want to go.” They kissed their way into Castiel’s bedroom. When Dean lay back on Cas’s California-king-sized bed (“I move a lot in my sleep,” Cas had offered as an excuse the first time Dean had seen the enormity of it), Cas sat at the foot of the bed, caressing Dean’s swollen legs. 

There had been a time, a few months back, when Dean had hidden his body from everyone, even Castiel. The right heart failure came with swollen feet and legs, and the inability for Dean to keep up his daily jogging. He’d felt large and ugly, like a troll from _The Lord of the Rings_. One morning, as Dean changed clothes in the bathroom away from Castiel’s eyes, his lover had walked in without knocking and said, “This body is nothing to be ashamed of, Dean. You are fighting to live, and with battle one can expect battle scars.” Dean had continued to hide his decaying body from Sam, but from that day, he never hid from Cas again. 

Cas moved forward, pressing his body to Dean’s. Normally, Dean would arch upward and thrust his hips into Cas’s, delighting in the friction that brought to them. But now the weight of Castiel’s body on Dean’s legs felt like being stuck in a compressor, and Dean cried out for Cas to stop. 

Cas froze. He moved so he was lying next to Dean, and he wrapped his arms around Dean’s torso. Cas whispered, “I just wanted to take care of you.” He kissed Dean again, and it was an apology. Dean began unbuttoning Cas’s shirt, because of course Cas would wear a button-down for a stay-at-home movie night. He kissed Cas’s neck, his collarbone, his shoulders, anywhere he could reach, but it was never enough. God, it was never going to be enough. 

“Dean, you need to slow down. Elevating your heart rate is dangerous.” Cas’s voice was full of concern. He placed his hands over Dean’s heart. “We don’t have to do this.” 

“Cas, take care of me,” Dean said. “Cas, _please_.”

It was nothing like the first time they had sex, which was full of awkward shimmying-out-of-jeans and laughter. This time, Cas took control, stripping Dean of his clothes quickly and efficiently, and then his own. He arranged Dean into the position they knew he would be most comfortable in, flat back, legs spread and elevated on stacks of pillows. It kept his legs from throbbing too much, and it kept Cas from accidentally hurting him, but it was the furthest thing from sexy. Dean thought he looked more like a woman waiting for a pap smear than a man about to have sex, but then Cas moved in between his legs and kissed his way down Dean’s abdomen, and he didn’t care anymore. 

 Cas took care in preparing Dean, slowly opening him up one thoroughly lubed finger at a time, and simultaneously stroking Dean’s dick. In other days, in other universes perhaps, they would have spent hours kissing each other, letting hands roam over each other’s bodies and “time” would have been just another word, like “the” or “from” or “that.” Time wasn’t a word anymore; it was a net cast around them, pulling them down and trapping them in its confines. Dean felt it, the urge to do everything a little faster, and he knew Cas did too. But there were some things that Cas would never do quickly, and Dean wasn’t really in the state of mind to complain when Cas finger-fucked him while sucking him off. 

If this heart thing didn’t kill him, Cas might. 

When Dean whimpered, Cas slowed down, his hand moving mere fractions of an inch per second. Dean wasn’t the kind of man to beg, but he did then. He begged Cas to move faster, begged him to fill him completely, begged him to kiss him again. Cas didn’t move any faster, but he did place himself between Dean’s legs. He kissed Dean again, kissed him like he was a drowning man and Dean was air. Finally, finally, when Cas slipped into Dean, and they began to move together, Dean felt once again like he was falling, that he’d reached terminal velocity, but this time he knew he didn’t have a parachute. 

“Cas,” he breathed without knowing why. “ _Cas.”_

Cas’s face was next to his left ear, and the other man’s hot breath poured into him. “Dean,” he said, “I’m right here. I’m here.” He said it over and over and over until every thrust of Castiel’s hips was punctuated with it. They fell into one another until Dean was certain that this moment, wrapped around Cas with their heartbeats practically in sync, was the closest he would ever get to flying. When he came, he cried out for Cas to never stop, to never let him go. Cas followed him a short while after, breathing into Dean and promising him “never.” 

Hours later, after Cas had cleaned them up and helped Dean elevate his legs again, Dean listened to Castiel’s low breathing and tried to sleep. “Cas?” he whispered.

“Yes, Dean?”

“I’m scared. I don’t want this to be the end.” The words were spoken like they might blow away in the soft exhale of Cas’s breath.

“It won’t be.”

** DAY 818  **

Thanksgiving dinner was the most important meal of the year, in Dean’s opinion. He and Ellen had been cooking for hours, until she had shooed him out of the kitchen with a meaningful look that said, “You better sit down for a while, mister.” Dean knew better than to argue with the head chef.

Cas was due to arrive at Dean and Sam’s apartment any minute, and he’d be meeting Ellen for the first time as Dean’s boyfriend and not as a physician (he’d have to meet Jo later since she’d gone to her boyfriend’s house for the holiday). Sam loved Cas. Jess loved Cas. It stood to reason that Ellen would love Cas too. Right? 

His phone chirped. 

From Cas: _I will be there shortly. What kind of pie should I bring?_ 12:16 p.m.

To Cas: _every kind_ 12:16 p.m.

From Cas: _that isn’t helpful._ 12:17 p.m.

To Cas: _bring pumpkin. And pecan._ 12:19 p.m.

He flopped onto the couch next to Jess, who was reading a magazine and not at all being useful for holiday preparations. “Hey,” he said to her. 

“Hey yourself.”

“How’s it going?”

Jess shrugged. “Same old. School sucks. Sam’s hair is better than mine.”

Dean put his legs up on the coffee table. Jess gave him a dirty look. “Bite me. It’s my furniture,” he said.

“It’s _our_ furniture!” Sam called from the kitchen. So Ellen had put him to work mashing potatoes. Excellent use of Sasquatch strength. 

“You can bite me too!”

Some muffled laughter and then Ellen’s voice called out, “We think that should be Cas’s job!”

Jess laughed at the scowl that appeared on Dean’s face. “You’ll get used to it,” she said. “People tease you because they know you’re happy.”

“It hasn’t been _that_ long since I was with somebody, and nobody ever made jokes at my expense before.”

“You weren’t happy before,” Jess pointed out. “With Cas, it’s different. I can tell.”

“Is that your ‘feminine intuition’ talking?”

Jess punched him in the shoulder. “No, it’s my I-have-two-eyes-and-I-can-see-things intuition,” she said. 

“What do you mean you can ‘see things’? You don’t see dead people, do you?”

“Keep it up and I might be talking to one right now.”

Dean huffed out a laugh. Not a full-belly laugh like Jess’s snark usually deserved, but a quiet one, one that didn’t constrict his lungs in a way that would burn for the next ten minutes. 

“Speaking of your boyfriend: where’s Cas?” Jess asked.

“On his way. He’s picking up pie.”

“Pie sounds good. With bacon.” She smacked her lips together. “Yes, pie, with bacon. And maple syrup.” 

That sounded disgusting, even to Dean who thought that pie was a food group in and of itself. But...Jess hated pie. Jess hated anything remotely resembling pie, even pie charts. Jess described herself as a “diehard cake fanatic.” Jess only allowed Dean to offer weekly specials on pie because he had threatened to fire her if she didn’t. In short, Jess was not a pie person. “Pie…with bacon,” Dean said slowly. Jess was obviously ill. Or pregnant. He looked at her drink. Water. Jess had once told him the story of how she and her sisters drank six-packs of Sam Adams every Thanksgiving in memory of their late grandfather. “Um, Jess,” Dean said, “Are you….?”

“Am I what? Pregnant? Took you long enough to notice. Sam has been trying to tell you for a week now. He’s been as nervous as kindergartener on his first day of school.”

Holy shit. Sam was going to be a dad. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. “Uh….” Dean could feel his breath getting quicker, and he closed his eyes and forced his breath to come out thickly and slowly, the way Cas had taught him to. 

“Uh, Sam? Dean needs you in here!”

Sam appeared in the living room. “What?” he asked. He looked at Dean. “Oh, shit. You told him?”

“I didn’t tell him! He guessed!”

“You’re...joking, right?” Dean forced out. 

“No,” Sam and Jess said in unison. 

“He’s not lying!” yelled Ellen from the kitchen. 

“A...baby?”

“Surprise?” said Jess.

“Merry early Christmas?” added Sam. 

Dean didn’t know whether to congratulate Sam or punch him in the shoulder. He settled for doing both. And then he gave his little brother, a soon-to-be-father (yeah that was weird to think about), the biggest hug he’d ever given. And then he gave one to Jess. And then he hugged them both. 

He was still hugging them when Cas walked in a few minutes later. 

“Hello Sam, Jess,” Cas said. “Dean?” He maneuvered so he could see Dean’s face from where it was squished between Sam and Jess’s shoulders. “Dean?”

Dean was absolutely not crying. Not at all. 

He grabbed Cas and brought him into the hug too. “Jess is pregnant,” he mumbled into Cas’s shoulder. 

Cas offered her his genuine congratulations, because everything Cas did was genuine. Ellen wandered into the living room and pulled the Winchesters out of one group hug and into another. “You boys are ridiculous,” she said. “And I love the tar out of you both. Now, Sam, get back to mashing potatoes. You’ll be making plenty of them when your firstborn starts teething.” She ushered Sam back into the kitchen, dragging Cas along with her. “I just gotta make sure he’s good enough for you, boy,” she called back to Dean. 

Cas looked terrified. He was right to be.

This left Dean and Jess alone in the living room. Ellen had left a stack of dishes and silverware, her not-so-subtle signal to set the table. Family bonding moment over, Dean and Jess decided to plop right back down on the couch and watch college football, like the red-blooded Americans they were. “The Cornhuskers can suck it,” Jess said. “The Hawkeyes are totally taking it this year.”

Dean laughed. “Please, the Hawkeyes are led by a scrawny teenager who can’t throw for shit. Nebraska is gonna kick their ass to the moon and back again.”

They argued some more about football until Ellen came out and intervened. “If I _have_ to ask you to set the table, there will be hell to pay,” she warned. They grumbled but got off the couch, each keeping one eye on the game. 

Dean’s feet were _really_ beginning to ache, and he was running short of breath from moving around the table. If Cas had been in the room, he had no doubt that the doctor would have made some excuse to get Dean sitting down again. As it was, he couldn’t think of a single reason to leave Jess alone and go lay down, so he soldiered on. 

It was really fucking pathetic, he decided, that setting the table for Thanksgiving dinner made him feel like he’d done a triathlon. 

“We want you and Ellen to be the godparents,” Jess said as she folded a napkin to look like a turkey. She placed the turkey on the center of a plate and moved onto the next one. 

“Wow.”

“I know you don’t attend church,” she said, “But it would mean a lot to Sam. And to me. Think about it?”

There was something stuck in Dean’s throat that felt a lot like grief. 

“Dean?” Jess said. “Are you feeling okay?” She looked concerned. 

“Yeah, uh, I need to go check on something.” That lie was as smooth as sandpaper. Dean hurried down the hallway to his bedroom, collapsing onto his bed. He pulled off his shoes, and then his socks, off and threw them across the room. He sighed in relief. He propped his feet up on some pillows, the way Cas had taught him to, and settled in for a short nap. Five minutes. Five minutes and then he could tackle the rest of Thanksgiving and babies he’d never get to see grow up. 

Tap. Tap. Tap. Jess opened the door to his room. “Dean? Are you okay?” she asked as she entered the room. She stopped short when she saw his feet. “Oh my god! What happened to your feet?” She leaned in closer and Dean hurriedly sat up and tucked his feet under him, wincing from pain. He wasn’t quick enough, and Jess got a good look at his elephant legs. 

“I’ve been standing up all day,” he lied. “Old age. Heheh.” 

Jess arched one eyebrow in that way that Dean could never master. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, and Dean got a glimpse of what she was going to be like as a mom. “Did I ever tell you that my grandad had pulmonary fibrosis? He had legs that would swell up like that.” She sat down on the bed next to Dean. “Show me.” 

Dean untucked his legs. He dreaded the look he was going to see on her face when she realized the extent that he’d lied to her for the past two years. Blood rushed to his face, his chest tightened, as he waited for her to say something. Jess moved closer, reaching out like she was going to touch his bloated ankles, but at the last second decided against it. “Oh, Dean,” she said. “Tell me the truth.”

He wondered what would happen if he didn’t, if he told her that it was an allergic reaction or that it was something that happened to him every winter when the weather turned cold. He also wondered what would happen if he did, if he stopped delaying the inevitable, and manned up and told the truth. 

“Well, if you check WebMD, it’s always cancer,” Dean joked. 

Shit, Jess looked like she believed the cancer thing. “It’s not cancer,” he quickly added. He said “It’s heart failure” at the same time Jess said “Oh thank god.”

Cue the awkward blank staring. 

“What?” Jess said. “How’s that even possible? I mean, sure, you’ve put on a little bit of weight recently but heart failure? I don’t believe it. No.”

What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t take it back now. The truth hung out there in the open, a giant billboard with “Dean Winchester is dying” painted in neon letters. 

“You’re going to be fine,” Jess continued, “And you’re going to be a terrible uncle who spoils me and Sam’s kids with too many milkshakes and trips to the zoo.” 

She sounded so certain and hopeful. Dean wanted to let her keep on believing it, but he said, “No, Jess. No.”

“Dean,” she pleaded. “Please tell me this is a joke. A horrible, sick twisted joke.”

“It’s not.”

“Does Cas know?”

Dean smiled bitterly. “He’s the one who told me,” he admitted. “I told you Cas was a doctor. He’s the specialist I got referred to.”

“Does Sam know?” Jess asked. She didn’t wait for Dean to answer. “Of course he doesn’t know. You’ve got ridiculous notions that heroes are martyrs so of course you wouldn’t tell him. Not until you had to.”Jess was practically yelling now.

“I will tell Sam,” Dean promised. 

“Really? How much longer were you going to wait, Dean? How long has it been?” Her words were like a slap to the face. 

“I will tell Sam,” Dean repeated. 

“Tell me what?” Sam asked as he walked into Dean’s bedroom. 

 


	5. Heartbeats

** DAY 858  **

Cas was curled around him as much as possible considering Dean was flat on his back with his legs raised above his heart. He knew Cas wasn’t asleep; he could hear it in his breathing. Cas didn’t sleep much anymore when Dean was with him. Dean didn’t sleep much at all. 

“Jess had a sonogram today.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“They don’t want to know. Crazy kids want it to be a surprise.”

“Do you want to know?”

“No. It doesn’t matter.” 

It did, but Cas let the lie slide past them in the dark. 

“Did you speak to Sam?”

“Yes.”

“Dean.”

“He’s still mad, okay? I can’t make him talk if he doesn’t want to. I was a shitty person who lied to him for years. He has the right to be mad at me.” 

“What you did--it doesn’t make you a bad person.”

“Well it doesn’t make me a good one either.”

Cas unwound himself from Dean and got out of bed. He pulled on some sweats (which did remarkable things for his lover’s ass, Dean noted) and threw another pair at Dean. “Get dressed,” Cas said and disappeared into the hallway. 

Dean groaned and looked at the clock. 1:28 a.m. They both had to work in the morning, and getting up wasn’t as easy as it used to be. He got up anyway, and pulled on the sweats that Cas had thrown at him. 

Cas bundled him into his car and drove across the city, even though Dean protested it being the middle of the night. When they pulled up to St. Ann’s, the church that Cas visited so often, Dean balked and resisted getting out of the car. “Why are we here?” he asked. “Why drive to a church in the middle of the night? I’m sure God can wait until morning.”

Cas rolled his eyes, an unfortunate habit he’d picked up from Sam. “I know you do not believe,” he said to Dean. “And I am not asking you to. I simply want to show you something. It’s a hobby of mine, really.”

Dean argued a bit longer. How were they supposed to get in? Who was going to open a church door at two in the morning? 

“I have keys,” Cas replied, sweeping past Dean in his trenchcoat. Of course Cas would wear a trenchcoat with sweatpants and somehow still make it sexy. Jerk. 

Cas unlocked the church doors and motioned for Dean to go in ahead of him. It was only the third time after his mother’s death that Dean had been in a church. He’d certainly never been brought to a church by a boyfriend before. He walked through the lobby and into the sanctuary, down through the long wooden pews and to the front of the church. It looked like every church Dean had ever seen on television. He sat down in the front row and waited for Cas to join him. Cas did, a few minutes later, after he’d turned on the lights. “Okay, Cas, why are we here?”

“Look up.”

“What? Why?”

“Look.”

Dean did. He had never been to Italy or France or anywhere that had art by the greats. Michelangelo. Da Vinci. Yet here in a church, in California of all places, was art to rival theirs. The vaulted ceiling was about half-painted in colors that were so bright they almost burned Dean’s eyes. It didn’t seem quite real, that art like this should be in a church so new. “Did you paint this?” he asked Cas in disbelief.

“I did,” Cas affirmed. “When I first moved here, I came to this church by accident. The reverend was kind to me, and eventually I offered to paint this fresco affresco for him. I’ve been working on it for several years now, since before I met you.” 

Dean looked at the ceiling and couldn’t find words to describe how incredibly beautiful the paintings were. He’d never seen anything like it? Cas already knew that. Cas had a great talent? Cas knew that too, or he wouldn’t be painting a friggin church. Any words Dean had to offer would be like crumbling plaster next to what Cas had created. 

Cas grabbed Dean’s hand and led him to the front of thesanctuary, behind the altar, which also was painted in frescoes. “This was the first wall I painted,” he said, reaching out to touch it. “What do you see?”

“Uh, that looks like Jesus and, uh, a woman. Mary what’s her name?”

“No, it isn’t Mary Magdalene.” Cas told him the story of Jesus and the bleeding woman, who had reached out and touched a raiment of cloth and had been healed. Dean didn’t believe in miracles, but he could see why the story would be popular with those who placed value in faith. Dean knew that no amount of faith was going to fix his heart, though, and he didn’t see the point of being in church at two in the morning just to realize that.

“That is not why I brought you here,” Cas said. “Let me tell you a story.”

When Cas was eleven, his mother had been diagnosed with leukemia. She had been a devout Episcopalian, Cas said, and when she began to die, so did Castiel’s faith. Why would God let someone as good as his mother die? Why would he allow her to be in such pain if He was a good and just being? It was a story Dean had heard before, in varying degrees and from different people. Even bad things happen to good people, blah blah blah. 

“No,” Cas said. “Death is a part of life, as much as birth, or laughter, or love. My faith was destroyed because I assumed that God micro-managed all aspects of the universe, and that he would prevent death, which is a process of life, because I willed him to. That’s not what God is.” 

He placed his hand on the wall, right next to the face of Jesus, and continued his story. The day his mother died, he had run away from the hospital and sat alone on a park bench for hours. “You know how lonely it feels,” Cas said, “When you lose a parent.”

Yes, he did know.

“Not one person even looked at me, and the longer I sat there, the lonelier I felt.” He looked at the painting again, and ran a finger along the contours of the face of God. “My mother’s doctor eventually found me. He sat next to me. He didn’t try to offer condolences—we both knew those are worthless when you’re in so much pain—but he told me that I wasn’t alone if I didn’t want to be.” 

Cas turned away from the painting and looked Dean in the eye. Dean could see that his lover’s eyes were beginning to fill with tears, and instinctively he brought his hands to Cas’s face to wipe them away. 

“The first time we met,” Cas said, “You asked me why I became a doctor; it is because I saw God in that man’s, that doctor’s, face.”

“Cas,” Dean breathed out. He leaned forward to press his forehead aginst his lover’s. 

 “I see him in yours, Dean, when you speak of Sam.”

There, in the middle of a church, in the eyes of God and whoever or whatever else may have been watching, Dean kissed Castiel. 

When they finally came up for air, Cas said, “I have faith, Dean, because of you.” 

** DAY 897  **

It was a Thursday, the day that Jess locked Dean and Sam in the car and walked away. He was certain it was a Thursday, because Cas was at the hospital, and Thursday was the day Cas was always at the hospital. It was getting more and more difficult for Dean to care about days. The hours, the minutes, were so much more immediate and important. 

It was important that Dean get out ofJess’s Toyota Corolla because it was wasting too many minutes. She hadn’t even rolled down a window (although it was February and raining, so in reality it didn’t matter that much). What the fuck was this, some kind of time-out? He was thirty-four for Christ’s sake. Not to mention, being cramped in a Corolla was _really_ not good for his legs. If he had a light saber he’d chop them the fuck off and put on the trashcan suit (he’d mastered the Vader impression years ago).

Okay, so maybe he was pouting about being on time-out. A little bit. But it was just as much Sam’s fault as it was his. 

He looked out the window at the rain, watched the pitter-patterings of raindrops onto the concrete pavement. Cas had once told him that raindrops were formed from clouds, “cloud droplets” he’d called them, and that in order for them to become the size of raindrops, they have to increase about a million times their original size. “If the atmospheric pressure were anything different, it would never work,” Cas had said, as they lay side-by-side under a different sky, watching a gentler rain. “If the combination of elements were anything else, we’d never have rain at all.” If he had never met Castiel, he would never have known that. 

Sam sat in the front seat, also staring at the storm. Rainstorms in Nebraska had never been like this. Was Sam thinking of those thunderstorms that twisted and turned the sky varying shades of purple and had lightning strikes like the flashes of cameras, bright and unexpected? Did Sam miss Nebraska? Did he miss the days when it was just them, two Winchesters against the world? If they had stayed, would Dean have ever driven the three-hour-drive to Omaha to see a cardiologist? Would Dean have ever known that his heart--which several ex-girlfriends swore he didn’t have--was counting down in every heartbeat? 

Did Jess know that he was going to think about this when she locked the brothers in the car? 

Probably. 

Almost as if on cue, both his and Sam’s phones chirped with a text from the pregnant hellion herself. 

From Jess: _talk. its been 3 months & im tired of the real life version of the berlin _ _wall_ 2:37 p.m.

“We talk,” Dean protested to his phone. “We talk every day.” Jess couldn’t hear him, but Sam could. “We’re fine.”

Sam chortled. “Yeah, I guess you would call it ‘fine.’”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sam turned around to face Dean, which was a feat considering that they were in an itty bitty Corolla. “You’ve been avoiding this conversation since you found out you were sick,” Sam said. “And you know what? That hurts. I don’t like that my brother couldn’t tell me what was going on. I don’t like that I only found out when you couldn’t hide it anymore.”

Sam’s words sounded an awful lot like what Sam had said to him the day he’d found Dean covered in puke on the bathroom floor and had to call 9-1-1 about a potential drug overdose. “I was trying to protect you, Sammy,” Dean told his brother. “I didn’t want you to worry about me; we couldn’t have done anything about it anyway. Not even Cas can save me.”

“It’s not your job to protect me.”

“That’s the thing, Sammy, it is my job.” It had been his job since the day Mary Winchester had died and their father had picked up the bottle.“I’m not saying I always did it right or that I didn’t fuck it up once in a while, but if I had to make this choice all over again? Yeah, I’d do it the same way.” 

Sam sighed. He pulled his fingers through his hippie hair and said, “I’m trying to understand, I am. I don’t want to be mad at you. There isn’t enough time to be mad at you.” 

What could Dean say to that? Lie? Say that there was plenty of time to fight about Dean’s uncanny ability to avoid shit or Sam’s stupid obsession with self-help books? They both knew there wasn’t. “I don’t need you to understand,” Dean said. “I don’t need you to cry or to hold an all-night prayer vigil, although Cas would probably join you in that last one. I need us to be us, okay? That’s all I want.”

Sam’s hands were clasped in front of him, and his gaze intent on the dashboard. To anyone else, it would look like his brother was praying, but Dean knew it as Sam’s “I’m thinking really deeply right now” pose. “Okay,” Sam said after a long pause in which Dean may or may not have stopped breathing. 

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Sam said again. “We’ll be us, for as long as we can.”

Relief shuddered through Dean’s body. He’d have to thank Jess. Wait. They were 

still locked in the car. “Uh, Sam? Will Jess let us out now?”

Sam shrugged. “She’s on a mission to find the perfect stroller. If I interrupt her now, I may not live to see my baby born.” 

Some days Dean still found it hard to believe that Sam was going to be a dad in about four months. Once or twice, he’d tried to talk to Cas about it, about the irony of one Winchester entering the world as another was leaving it, but some conversations not even Cas was prepared to have. “Dude, you’re going to be a dad,” Dean said. He mimed his brain exploding. 

“I know. Crazy, right?” 

“The craziest.” 

“Want to see something else that’s crazy?” Sam reached into his pocket. and pulled out a small velvet box. 

“Is that what I think it is?” 

Sure enough, Sam popped open the box and showed Dean a simple diamond ring. It was the exact one Dean had seen on Sam’s Pinterest the week before. Not that he was cyberstalking his brother in an attempt to determine if he’d ever make his baby mama an honest woman. 

“Do you think she’ll say ‘yes’?” Sam asked. He sounded as nervous as he looked. 

“Dude, she’s popping your baby out of her uterus. Don’t look grossed out--you’re gonna be there holding her hand. If that doesn’t say love, I don’t know what does.” He wanted to tell Sam that he was proud, so damn proud, of the man he’d become, but instead he said, “Now text your girlfriend and get us out of this damn car.”

** DAY 899  **

From Cas: _I’m sorry I have to work today._ 8:33 a.m.

To Cas: _i left u something at ur office_ 8:58 a.m.

From Cas: _a crayon?_ 11:28 a.m.

To Cas: _i couldnt find purple. sorry_ 11:30 a.m.

To Cas: _happy valentines day_ 11:31 a.m.

From Cas: _i thought it was customary to send flowers_ 11:32 a.m.

To Cas: _the crayon means more_ 11:33 a.m.

From Cas: _yes, it does._ 11:33 a.m.

From Cas: _I love you too._ 11:34 a.m.

** DAY 900  **

From Sam: _she said yes._ 9:45 p.m.

From Jess: _hello brother._ 9:47 p.m.

** DAY 146 _-The First Time Cas Called Dean_ **

His phone vibrated so violently it fell of the precarious ledge Dean had perched it on. Dean swore, and set down his tools and bent down to pick up his phone. 

_1 missed call from Cas._

He dialed the doctor’s number and cradled the phone against his ear, picking up his tools again to return to working on the Impala’s engine. That was easier said than done, however, as he quickly discovered. When Castiel’s gruff voice answered with a “hello?” Dean put down the tools altogether.

“Hey, Cas, you called me?”

“Cas?”

“It’s a nickname.”

“My brothers used to call me ‘Cassie.’ I did not appreciate it.”

“Ok, sorry, _Castiel._ ”

“You may call me Cas. I do not mind.” 

“Cas. Castiel. Whatever. Why’d you call me?”

“Oh, it is January the twenty-fourth, correct?”

“Yeah. Hold on, I’m putting you on speaker phone so I can keep working on my car.”

 Dean set the phone back on its hazardous ledge, eyeing its balance warily. “Yeah, its January 24. Why?”

“Happy birthday.”

“Oh, uh, thanks. Who told you?” Dean grabbed his pliers and tugged on the spark plugs, pulling them out one at a time. 

“Facebook.”

“Uh, you know you could have just written it on Facebook.”

“That is impersonal.”

“Okay, well thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So, uh, how you been, Cas?”

“I am well. How are you, Dean? What are you working on?”

“Uh, I’m changing out the spark plugs in the Impala.”

“Oh, did they burn out?”

“No, I’m just upgrading to iridium ones. Has a higher melting point and conductivity. Should make Baby run for a long time.” He patted the side of the Impala, even though Cas wasn’t there to see. 

“I see. Any reason for the upgrade?”

“Thinking of taking her on the open road. Maybe up to see the redwoods. I’ve always wanted to see them.”

“The vainest, most slap-happy and irreverent of men, in the the presence of redwoods, goes under a spell of wonder and respect.”

“What?”

“It’s a quote from Steinbeck.”

“Of course it is.”

“He also compares the awe and quiet one experiences when seeing the trees for the first time to the impressiveness of a cathedral. In fact, the trees are often referred to as ‘god’s cathedral.”

Dean put down the pliers. “That doesn’t interest me. Just the trees.”

“Oh. Well, the Paiute called them the _woh-woh-nau_.” 

Dean laughed as he picked up the spark plug socket and ratchet. “Tell me about the wha-wha-now.”

“The _woh-woh-nau_.”

“Cas, in the future, let’s stick to text messages.”

** DAY 910  **

From Jess: _i need you to come to work_ 8:33 a.m.

From Jess: _im training a new kid and i need you to give him a hard time_ 8:34 a.m.

From Jess: _its a rite of passage._ 8:35 a.m.

To Jess: _what time?_ 8:38 a.m.

Dean showed up at the diner an hour later and hobbled to a seat at the corner booth. It had been a while since he’d watched Jess train a new employee, even longer since she’d arranged for an “irate customer” to show up and hassle the staff.He watched her direct the new kid she’d hired--some college freshman named Kevin Tran who looked like he should be the captain of a mathlete squad--around the diner in short barked orders. Jess was scarier at six months pregnant than she had been that one time Dean had seen her level a guy with one well-placed punch.  

Poor Kevin. 

Eventually they made it around to his booth, and Jess very calmly said to Kevin, “Take his order, and don’t frak it up this time.” Then she smiled saccharine sweet at Dean and winked at him. 

Kevin fidgeted, twisting the corners of his order pad. “Whacanigetforyousir?” he blurted out in one frenzied rush of vowels and consonants. 

Jess threw an amused look his direction, and Dean forced himself to ignore it. “Give me the Greek omelette,” he said, making his voice gruffer than usual, “But hold the bell peppers, substitute kale for spinach, add mushrooms, and add extra feta. I’d also like hashbrowns with onions and radishes, and an order of biscuits and gravy with the gravy on the side and the biscuits cut into quarters and toasted. Also French-pressed coffee.”

Kevin was scribbling furiously on the order pad. “No kale..add olives...radishes...biscuits…” The poor kid was overwhelmed and visibly “shook in his boots” every time Jess so much as glanced in his direction. 

Jess leaned over and stole a look at what Kevin was writing down. “No, there should be kale but no spinach and mushrooms but no olives,” she corrected. 

“Uh, right,” Kevin said. “I’ll just go put this order in.” He spun on his heel and began to power-walk away from Dean’s booth until Dean called him back. 

“I changed my mind,” Dean said. “I’d just like a coffee.”

“Just a coffee?”

“Just a coffee.” 

Kevin looked like he was going to cry in relief. “I can do that,” he said. And then he practically skipped away. 

Jess fell into the booth, laughing so hard Dean thought she might pee her pants. “Oh man,” she said, “He’ll never forget you as long as he works here. Biscuits cut into quarters and toasted? Priceless.”

“Well, that was my goal,” he said, “To never be forgotten.”

Jess stopped laughing. She reached across the table and took his hand in hers. “You won’t be,” she said.

“You gonna build a shrine to me above the urinal or something?”

“Or something,” she said. 

** DAY 920  **

To Sammy: _You need to come to the hospital._ 1:29 a.m.

From Sammy: _Dean? what’s wrong_ 1:30 a.m.

To Sammy: _this is Cas. Dean has been admitted. i forgot my phone at home._ 1:32  a.m.

From Sammy: _on our way_ 1:33 a.m.

** DAY 929  **

Cas took a leave of absence from work. Dean didn’t complain about it. 

** DAY 932  **

Sam and Jess moved up their wedding. They said they wanted it to be official before the baby came. Dean knew they were lying. 

** DAY 962  **

Dean finally saw Las Vegas.

In a small wedding chapel on Las Vegas Boulevard, he stood next to his brother, Jo and Ellen standing beside them, as Sam said “I do” to the best woman they knew. 

At the reception, which Cas had paid for, Dean danced with Jessica. She was pregnant, and his legs were the size of tree trunks, and they kind just shuffled around awkwardly on the dance floor. At the end of the dance, she leaned in close and said, “I’ll take care of him.” 

Dean had never doubted that. 

** DAY 994  **

Dean saw his last sunrise as paramedics wheeled him into an ambulance. 

** DAY 998  **

From Ellen: _Jo and I will be there tomorrow._ 7:53 p.m.

From Jo: _if u die before i get there ill never forgive you_ 8:27 p.m.

** DAY 999  **

Dean woke up to the slow and steady beating of the heart monitor. It sounded like a countdown. Maybe it was. Sam sat at his bedside, where he’d been the last three days, reading _The Brothers Karamazov_ for the fiftieth time. 

“Hey,” Dean said. His voice was rough and scratchy. “How long was I out?”

Sam marked his place in the book and closed it. Set it on the flimsy hospital table that was connected to Dean’s bed. “Eighteen hours,” said Sam. “They had to intubate you. That’s why your voice sounds weird.”

It came back to him in small snippets--a frantic screaming of the heart monitor, someone yelling “Code Blue” (he’d thought they’d only done that in the movies), Sam’s panicked face. He’d never seen Sam look so scared before, and Sam didn’t sleep for seventy-two hours after they’d watched _The Exorcist_. 

“How are you feeling now?” Sam asked. 

“Like death.”

The laughter that came then was in place of tears, Dean knew. His joke was ill-timed and inappropriate, but it was worth it to see Sam smile. This was it. The last memory of Sam. He knew that Sam knew that he’d never see the outside of this hospital room again, and he knew that Sam knew what he meant when he asked, “So, the Royals, think they’ll make it into the playoffs this year?”

Sam shook his head. The Royals were a sore subject for the Winchesters after they’d blown the last Series. Dean suspected that Sam had cried into Jess’s shoulder. Jess, of course, had thrown a bash at the diner in honor of the Giants’ win, and Dean remembered Cas’s confused face as Jess had tried to explain the superiority of the western division. It was one of his favorite memories, one that he had added to the running list of things that surprised him: #24, that Jess could name the winner of every World Series since 1970. 

“Do you remember your 1978 Nolan Ryan baseball card that Dad gave you for your eighth birthday?”

Dean did. 

“You loved that card,” Sam said, his voice wistful. “You kept it locked up, wouldn’t let me touch it, even though it was only worth $25.” 

Dean had loved that card, and when he was thirteen, he had insisted to the pawnshop owner that it was worth $28, not $25, which was just enough to buy Sam the baseball glove he had wanted for Christmas. 

“You spelled Santa Claus wrong,” Sam said. 

Spelling had never been a strength for Dean. 

“I still have that glove,” Sam said. “I kept it. I always thought it brought me good luck because you gave it to me.”

“You needed all the luck you could get,” Dean scoffed. “You were a shit left-fielder.”

“I know.” 

Maybe neither Winchester would ever be able to say “thank you” in those words, but Dean knew Sam well enough to know that his brother was saying: _thank you for being there when Dad wasn’t._

Jess sometimes told Dean that she envied his ability to communicate with her husband--holy shit, Sammy was a married man--without talking. “It’s like shit you see with the X-Men,” she would say, “Like, really, use your words sometimes so us mortals can understand.” Jess wouldn’t have to worry about that much longer. 

"Sam," said Dean. "Where's Jess?"

Sam smiled, and it was the saddest thing Dean had ever seen. "She's in delivery," he said. 

Of course she was. It would be just like Jess to deliver a baby when he was dying.  
“Hand me your phone,” Dean said. 

“You’re not supposed to use cell phones in a hospital,” Sam protested. 

“It’s okay. I’m sleeping with the doctor.” 

Sam handed over his phone without any further protest. 

To Jo:  _sorry, kid. -D_ 2:48 p.m.

To Ellen: _thank you -D_  2:48 p.m.

To Jess:  _the diner is in ur name. all paperwork is filed. u better name the baby after me._ 2:49 p.m.

"Go," he said to Sam, "She needs you."

"So do you." 

Always. 

"Sam, I promise that in my next life you can mother me all you want.”

There was the classic bitchface, one last time.

“But right now,” Dean continued, “You have a wife who needs you and soon a baby too. Don't you dare not be there. Don't you dare." He didn't have to add, "Don't you dare be like Dad."

Sam reached out and squeezed Dean's hand. "I'll be back and you can meet your new niece or nephew."

"I'll be here waiting."

They both knew it was a lie. Sam hesitated when he reached the doorway, his loyalty divided between his brother and his wife. “Go,” Dean repeated. 

Sam walked out of the hospital room, and Dean fought every instinct he had not to call his brother back. Could he face this without Sam? Could he meet his final moments without his brother at his side? 

The heart monitor continued to beep. Dean was alone. Sam was with Jess. Jess was having a baby. Ellen and Jo were on a plane, on their way from Nebraska. And Cas? Cas had gone home to get some sleep, Sam had said. He still had Sam’s phone. He could call Cas, get him here sooner, get a little more time with him. A few more minutes? A few more seconds? 

He didn’t want any of his minutes spent with Cas to have the soundtrack of a heart monitor. He didn’t want any memories that didn’t have Cas smiling or Cas wearing a white coat instead of wearing his trenchcoat or Cas saying goodbye. He didn’t know if Cas would cry at the end; he didn’t know if he’d have the breath he needed to say goodbye. 

How was he supposed to die? There was no guidebook to this, no YouTube tutorial to watch. Was he supposed to be alone? Should he have prepared some bullshit wisdom to say from his deathbed? How was he supposed to leave Sam and Jess and Cas behind? How was he supposed to go out without fighting a little more, a little harder for more time? 

How the fuck did a person go about dying, anyway?

The hospital room was a hideous shade of buttercream. It looked like old meringue. He could almost fucking cry from the irony that he was going to die in a room that looked like his least-favorite type of pie. 

When Cas walked in a few moments later, Dean remembered the first time he’d seen him, back when he thought of Dr. Novak as just another dick in a white coat. How wrong, how utterly fucking wrong, he had been about Cas. 

Cas broke about ten hospital regulations when he crawled onto the small hospital bed and curled up next to Dean. It hurt, it hurt a fucking lot to have Cas pressing so close, but death wasn’t supposed to be comfy, was it? Besides, he was going to die, and he said a silent ‘fuck you’ to the interior designer of the hospital, but he was going to die looking at Castiel’s face and not some putrid-colored walls. 

"Are you afraid?" Cas asked him. 

"No." Not anymore. He probably should have been, but instead he was glad to be with Cas. It was really fucking selfish to keep Cas here with him to the end, he knew, but, hey, he wouldn’t be around to regret it in the morning. 

"I...I am going to miss you." The tremor in Cas's voice echoed in the tremor of the heart monitor. 

Fuck, this was it, wasn’t it? With Sam, he hadn’t needed words. But Cas? Cas deserved a goodbye and so much more. Cas deserved a lifetime of happiness and puppies and unicorns farting rainbows. "Next time we see each other,” Dean told him, “We are going to have so much more time. I promise. So much more. Even if I have to kick St. Peter's ass to make it happen."

Cas curled his arms tighter around Dean, as if that would keep him there longer. "You will make a terrible addition to the heavenly host."

Dean smiled, and he knew it was for the last time. "Well, it's not the wings that make an angel." He placed Castiel's hand over his heart. If there was ever a time for some Nicholas Sparks-worthy chick flick love confession, this was it. "I don't regret anything, Cas. Not one thing." If it weren't for this stupid bad heart, he would never have met Cas.

Cas leaned down and kissed Dean’s chest, right next to where the heart monitor was attached. His lips pressed against Dean’s torso, he said, "I do not regret meeting you, or loving you, but I regret that I will miss you. That you will not see Sam's child grow up. That I will never wake up next to you again."

Dean thought of Jess’s smile when she’d felt the baby kick for the first time, and the glow on Sam’s face when he’d said “I do”, and the church Cas had spent years painting. He didn’t know if there really was something, or someone, up there that was responsible for him living, or dying, but perhaps Cas was right, that somehow there was more for them. "I don't believe that this is the end," said Dean. With great effort, he brought Castiel's hand to his lips and kissed it. "If there is one thing I believe,” he said, “It's that we will see each other again." 

They fell into silence, and the only sound in the room was the continued beeping of the heart monitor. Cas’s breath was punctuated with quiet sobs, as Dean struggled to keep his constant. He fought, he fought to feel Castiel’s arms around him for just another minute. Just one. 

Beep. 

Sam’s excitement when Dean gave him that baseball glove. 

Beep. 

The fierce look on Jo’s face right before she slapped him for kissing her. 

Beep. 

The tears Ellen shed when Dean had finished rehab.

Beep.

The way Jess looked at Sam.

Beep.

The way Sam glowed whenever he felt his baby kick. 

Beep. 

Cas’s hands as he painted. 

Beep.

Cas.

The heart monitor beeped. Beeped. Beeped. 

And then it didn’t. 

 


	6. Epilogue

It isn’t easy for Dr. Castiel Novak to wake up. He dreads every morning, when he has to get out of bed and remember. 

Dean is gone.

Dean is dead. 

He gets out of bed. He showers. He dresses himself, always wearing his trenchcoat. He goes into the kitchen, and pours himself one cup of coffee. Every morning, he reminds himself not to grab a second mug. He makes breakfast, an egg-white only scramble. Dean had taught him the recipe, had even adjusted it for Castiel’s “healthy” habits.  He grabs the keys to his Prius, sets them back down, and grabs Dean’s keys with the rabbit foot keychain. They’re still Dean’s, just like the Impala is still Dean’s, even if it sits in Castiel’s garage. 

Sam hadn’t wanted it. He said he needed a baby-friendly car. 

Jess said that the car was Dean’s heart, and that it belonged to Cas. 

Dean’s leather jacket is in the passenger seat. Castiel talks to it sometimes, like Dean is there, is still listening, with one hand tapping out a Led Zeppelin drumbeat on his right knee. He tells Dean about the Impala’s abysmal gas mileage and how he can’t figure out the purpose of the rubber duck Dean had left in the shower as a joke. He talks to Dean’s jacket as he drives Dean’s car and sometimes he imagines Dean isn’t really dead. He imagines so many different worlds, different universes, in which they could have met. Sometimes they meet in coffee shops, sometimes in bars, sometimes even on online dating sites. He wonders if it always would have ended like this, if Dean and he would always be lovers. He hopes that in some world Dean keeps his promise and that they have more time. 

He drives to Dive Burger. He goes every day before he goes to work. Today is his day off, however, and he is no particular hurry as he walks in, greets Sam as he leaves for his internship at a local law office, and joins Jess at the counter for a cup of coffee. For reasons he doesn’t understand, she always sets a salt shaker next to her mug. 

Sam and Jess’s daughter, Mary Deanne Winchester, is six months old today. She looks like Dean. She laughs when Castiel picks her up, and she plays with the collar of his trenchcoat. 

“Awww, you love your Uncle Cas don’t you?” Jess coos. 

Uncle Cas. He likes the sound of that, and thinks Dean would have too. 

Jess hands him a cardboard box that’s well worn around the edges. “Think you’ll finish today?” she asks. 

“I plan to,” he answers honestly. 

This box, it’s the last thing Dean ever gave to him, but Cas has yet to take it home. He carries it to the far side of the diner, opens it, and pulls out a collection of paints and brushes. There’s one blue crayon that he pulls out and sets next to him while he paints. He mixes together a green that’s the same shade of Dean’s eyes and gets to work. 

It’s finished by the time Sam returns for the dinner shift. Cas and Jess sit with Mary at a booth near the diner’s entrance, each nervous about what Sam will do or say. He doesn’t talk much about Dean unless Castiel or Jess bring him up. Sam walks in, loosening his red tie as he moves, but he drops his briefcase when he sees the back wall of the dining room. 

“Wow,” Sam stammers. “Cas, just...wow.”

He sits next to his wife and together, they stare at Cas’s finished piece of art. 

It’s Dean, in the Impala, driving down a long stretch of empty highway toward a redwood forest. 

Castiel looks at it and remembers the texts Dean had sent him that day, the day he drove through the redwoods. 

From Dean: _these trees are older than i am & theyll be here long after im gone_

From Dean: _promise me that u will come here someday & think of me_

Cas does. 

 

FIN. 

**Author's Note:**

> I am literally out the door to catch a flight to LAX so I can attend Burcon this weekend. 
> 
> You can find me on [Twitter.](http://twitter.com/dearcollectress) Or on [Tumblr](http://casual-female-viewer.tumblr.com).
> 
> Please give archiought some well-deserved love on the [art masterpost](http://archiought.tumblr.com/post/102540065357/999-days-from-now-dcbb-2014-art-masterpost).
> 
> Thank you for reading. Kudos and comments are love. <3  
> Free hugs to all who need it.


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